Hey, it least he didn’t call proponents of copyright reform radical extremists, then blatantly lie about it, as Canada’s heritage minister did (and oh yes, he did call them radical extremists, as the end of the linked article points out, it’s on tape).

No no, our VP simply chose to blatantly lie about the damage and impact of file sharing, trying to make it sound like something dangerous and violent–evil, really, when in fact it’s something that is mostly harmless (“Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”) and largely blown out of proportion–the actions of both sides, file sharers and the RIAA, are more misguided than anything else.

Perhaps more on this later, I’ve got a rant brewing, but whether it gets posted or not only time will tell.

Till then,

Lark

No, this other site is for a very specific purpose, contrasted with this site which exists as a hose from which I spew blather endlessly yet irregularly.

Regarding this other site, every week I think, “Next week, it’ll go online.” It’s not being delayed because the site itself needs work, it’s pretty much sitting there waiting for me to finish a completely different bit of work. Once this other bit of work is done, then the site will go up. When that will be, well, my best guess was Wednesday March 3rd, 2010. Weeks ago.

That’s why I don’t give specific promises, including dates, on this website.

Those delays are beside this particular point. The problem is, I think the other site looks a lot better than this one. I did a lot of work on this site’s design months ago. Actually, what, a year ago? Something like that. The point is, I thought I was done with this site for a while. I should have remembered that web design, like life, is never finished. Until you die. Then the site sits in the Wayback Machine forever, a few minor tweaks away from being exactly like you wanted it.

Thriceberg.com isn’t in the Wayback Machine, by the way. That’s a getting-kicked-while-one’s-down sort of thing.

Tonight, as I was waiting for my day’s work to backup, I decided to work on thriceberg.com’s theme (which is really Royale, a free theme I downloaded and tweaked a very, very little bit).

The other site’s theme has a fixed width. In theory, having a re-flowing width makes more sense. It fits the space that’s made available by the size of your screen. In reality it looks messy and can be a pain to read. Not to mention I’m playing with the idea of putting images at the top of my posts–without having a fixed width there’s no way I can be sure how it’s going to look on my reader’s screens.

On my 1680×1050 monitor, this site is just a sea of text. Perhaps a little overwhelming? That’s my excuse anyway. I’ve played with typesetting before, I know narrow columns are easier to read, I just ignored that knowledge because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t had been able to mess this site up.

I have been aware of the whole sea-of-text thing for a while, that’s why I’ve been trying to have only a few sentences before the “break,” so the word-wall is broken up a bit. It’s gone a ways to help things out, but I’ve still come around to the idea of a fixed-width site.

Another problem with the theme as it is now: The text on the header acts as a link that will bring you back to the “main” page. Clicking the little iceberg logo next to the text does not act as a link. I know as little about php and css (so little I don’t know which I need to know in order to make the image a link) as I did when I set up that theme. My web searching skills must have gotten a lot better since then though because I found out the right way to do it while working on the other unnamed site.

This other unnamed site is also using a free theme, but it’s simple and clean and I can’t be bothered to care if it’s not especially unique. I went for unique for my first ever theme and it looked like someone ate a bunch of sky blue markers and threw up.

Oh look! WordPress still has a thumbnail of it!!! Look in horror!

Eew, gross. Right? Well at the very least we can all agree I’ve come a long way since then. Not in being better at color choice and general design, but in that I now know to find a nice template and not touch it in ways it wasn’t intended to be touched. That came out wrong, and in the process actually helped get my point across exactly.

But wait, why do I feel like a jerk? Because I keep pushing back my other project’s deadline? Well yes, but not right now.

Because most of my site templates have sucked, either a little or a lot? Again, yes, but not at this very moment.

Stop guessing, I’ll just tell you: It’s because I have a much better theme set up for this site, all ready to go, but I’m not going to activate it until this other site launches. They’re the same theme, with minor color differences and different banners. It just seems appropriate to launch them both at the same time.

So every time I add a new post until the new site is up, I’m going to cringe a little bit more than I usually do. Every time my readership spikes a bit and then drops back down, I’m going to wonder if I would have kept those people had the theme been a little better.

And when the new site is up, I’m going to get all sorts of messages from friends saying, “Really? This is the big improvement you were talking about? Really?”

Well shut up, it looks good to me.

Till then,

Lark

I have two separate packages coming my way, a MicroSD card and a N900. Both scheduled to arrive today. To update all of you from my last post, Both packages hit bad weather this morning (assumedly) in Kentucky. Both couldn’t have been delayed for too long because tracking listed both as being in Kansas City later this morning.

Here’s a timeline:

6:23 am – both packages arrive in Kansas City, MO.
7:16am – SD card leaves KC for Lawrence
8:09am – SD card arrives at Lawrence’s hub.
8:12am – N900 is out for delivery on it’s route (eventually to reach my house)
EDIT – just checked and saw my SD is now officially out for delivery as well.
8:19am – SD card is out on it’s route (eventually to my house)

This is all the information I’ve been given since the packages have reached Kansas City. Somehow the N900 never left KC, or even arrived at Lawrence’s hub before it went out for delivery. What’s more, this almost indicates they’re on different trucks. Doesn’t it?

No cause for worry anymore, so I won’t. Let’s just hope the packages arrive sooner rather than, oh, 8:30pm.

Seriously.

Lark

Point is, I’m trying to learn a foreign language, but I can’t seem to find tapes or books to help me out.

Anybody know a good set of tapes or a correspondence course that can teach relative fluency in UPS Tracker-speak?

I love package tracking. It gives my OCD a whole new page to constantly refresh while I’m waiting to get my shiny new things! I try to rotate compulsive page-refreshing in-between obsessive hand washings to try and keep my hands from getting raw so quickly.

As cool as tracking is in theory, it’s significantly diminished by it’s execution. UPS seems to have just tacked a limited public window into their internal system. ‘Origin Scan’, ‘Arrival Scan’, and ‘Departure Scan’ all make sense, if they’re a bit user-unfriendly. They could just say “We have your package.” “Your package is on it’s way to Kansas City.”

It’s really not a problem when everything is going fine, but all that needs to happen is for something to go wrong in order for me to get a giant headful of confusion.

Here’s the tracking info as it shows up on my site (it’s since changed, so I tried to re-construct it):

KANSAS CITY, MO, US 01/26/2010 5:28 A.M. Delay in delivery due to weather or natural disaster
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 01/26/2010 5:54 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 01/26/2010 12:52 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 01/25/2010 10:04 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Now of course I live near KC, and I know there are no adverse weather conditions. It must be in KY, where they were in advisory for about an inch of snow. Why would the location stamp be listed in KC if the weather is in KY? There’s another little oddity I wouldn’t have noticed had Amazon’s tracking page not told the story a little differently:

January 26, 2010 05:54:00 AM Louisville KY US Departure Scan
January 26, 2010 05:28:00 AM Kansas City MO US Delay in delivery due to weather or natural disaster
January 26, 2010 12:52:00 AM Louisville KY US Shipment received by carrier
January 25, 2010 06:49:30 PM Campbellsville KY US Shipment has left seller facility and is in transit

Yes, that’s right, the top two lines are switched on UPS’s additional tracking, taken out of their proper order. Why, I can’t say. I suppose it makes sense to group tracking info by city then by time, because you shouldn’t have the same package going back and forth between cities (and I’m sure that never happens).

So what am I to take from this? That it wasn’t sent to KC because of bad weather, and I suppose the tracking info was placed as if from Kansas City because that’s the next hub the package would be going to?

I would have just assumed the package was delayed going to Kansas City, but it’s there now where the weather’s fine and my package will arrive today. But the time stamps show it departing KY at 5:54am, 26 minutes after any info tagged to Kansas City. I’m sooooo confused.

Have no fear though, they’ve updated their info and it is at least definitive if not clear what went on or how:

KANSAS CITY, MO, US 01/26/2010 6:23 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
01/26/2010 5:28 A.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 01/26/2010 5:54 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
01/26/2010 12:52 A.M. ORIGIN SCAN
US 01/25/2010 10:04 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

So it is in Kansas City, but it didn’t arrive until 6:23am, so I suppose at 5:28am they’re just telling me that there will be a delay due to the weather. The funny thing is, if I didn’t have tracking I wouldn’t have worried and the package will still probably be on time anyway, but that’s an entirely different issue.

So I’m going to attempt a UPS-to-civilian translation. Here’s perhaps how their tracking info should read:

KANSAS CITY, MO, US 01/26/2010 6:23 A.M. Your package is now in Kansas City.
01/26/2010 5:28 A.M. Due to weather problems your package will be delayed (here’s the important part) for about an hour (“about an hour” would have immediately put me at ease and saved me the trouble of even needing to write this post. Of course in worse scenarios they could suit it to fit the situation like “at least a day” or similar. If, you know, they wanted to be transparent and proactive.).
LOUISVILLE, KY, US 01/26/2010 5:54 A.M. You package is leaving Kentucky.
01/26/2010 12:52 A.M. We have your package in our facility.
US 01/25/2010 10:04 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED – We don’t have your package but we are aware that it exists.

My biggest problem with tracking systems is that they don’t tell you what they have planned.

For instance, Amazon’s site lists “Estimated Arrival,” although that’s generally a bowl of crap and it doesn’t change if there’s a problem with an order. UPS doesn’t tell me on the site when it’s estimated to be delivered at all, not even the day, although I do get a clue with the type of shipping they list, “Next Day Air Saver”.

I know it’d bring about a lot of problems, but it’d be really nice if they could say: “The truck is out, you are towards the end of the driver’s route, which should be finished by 6pm.” How about we get a queue number (how many packages are ahead of ours), and we can watch as we get closer and closer to delivery. Then they’d also have to say things like “driver went to lunch,” so when I’m next in line I can know the wait is going to be another hour.

I know that’s not something that’s ever going to happen. But here’s something that would save UPS a lot of money and make me extremely happy:

Don’t even deliver the package to my house. Many times I’ve seen my package is in my town at 5-7am, but it isn’t delivered until 8:30pm. Yes, I have had that experience with UPS.

Just give customers the option to pick up our packages at a UPS store or something, at our convenience. At 9am, after they’ve had time to bring it over from the warehouse. At noon over my lunch break (that would save a lot of 9-5 people a lot of problems with missing deliveries). On top of that, UPS is saving gas, it’s saving driver time, and it’s allowing people to not be chained to their front doors when they’re waiting for a package they have to sign for.

Right now they have a simple verification system. If you’re in a house, you probably live there or have permission to be there. They don’t need to check IDs, they just give the package to whoever’s there. They’d have to implement an ID check or similar to pick up a package at a UPS store. I personally like the idea of a customer-chosen password (or simply checking ID), but customer pickups couldn’t possibly cause more problems than are already caused by late deliveries, drivers throwing packages onto door steps, and wrong addresses.

As I’m writing this I’ve been constantly checking my tracking info. It hasn’t changed since 6:23am, over an hour ago from this writing. Perhaps I shouldn’t worry, but Amazon’s status says “Shipment Delayed” and UPS says “Exception.” I’m 90% sure my package will arrive today, on time, but seeds of doubt…

If it doesn’t show up today I’ll probably write up another post. If it does arrive then I’ll probably be too busy with the thing that I bought to tell everyone. Well, maybe a quick post, made from my new device. Oh, what device did I order? Oh, some new phone thingy, I might have mentioned it before, it’s called an iPhone. That’s right, I’m finally cool.

Just kidding. It’s an N900. I haven’t named it yet, but it’s 6.38 ounces, and I intend to raise it Agnostic. It’s a boy! Unless I lose the stylus, in which case it’s a girl!

EDIT – Okay, I really have 2 packages coming, the N900 and a microSD card. The MicroSD card departed from KC at 7:16am. The N900 hasn’t left yet. I will be so pissed off if the SD card comes today but the N900 does not. Very, very pissed.

Extremely pissed.

Smouldering.

I will move things with my mind in a menacing fashion. And it will be all UPS’s fault.

Lark

Light Sabers
Geology
Ceiling Cat
Disaster
Montana
Are you uncomfortable with this word?
Halloween
Recession
Literally? Porked it.
Racism

So that’s what I did with my morning.

Lark

Maybe sites need a check box saying, “I am capable of assessing the risk of my own password.” Or, “I know I shouldn’t use my middle name as a password.” Or, “I do not need a babysitter at this particular time in my life.” I understand why Facebook might want to enforce a certain level of password security, because my grandma uses Facebook and she also trusts every pop-up and banner ad she reads. This site I’m registering at provides advanced services for web administrators, something that requires a certain level of knowledge about the technology being used and it’s security risks (yeah, that doesn’t guarantee a lack of stupidity, but shut up, I’m being angry).

I also understand that using uppercase letters along with lowercase letters increases the number of possible characters by 26, from 66 to 92 (roughly, just looking at my keyboard). Meaning that with a 20-character password, using lowercase letters only means there’s a frighteningly small number of possible passwords:

1,353,669,535,298,323,102,197,037,856,681,569,026,048

But using uppercase letters, too, you get a large, safe, un-guessable number of possible passwords:

1,886,933,291,627,965,536,395,870,951,737,944,702,976

Wow, that safeguard kept my ass out of the fire, for real. Look how exposed I would have been had they not forced me to use uppercase letters! Thanks, web service that will remain anonymous, now fuck off.

Lark

(BTW I got the numbers ’66′ and ’92′ by counting the number of characters available on my keyboard, it was a quick count, and it’s probably wrong)

This comic strip is from 1906, and they all fall like that. Panel 1, somebody does something inconsiderate, panel 2, Everett True beats them up. There’s a lot of them to read at Barnacle Press, a site I’ve just discovered and will be visiting a lot. Kind of reminds me of Milk and Cheese.

Enjoy,

Lark

If that weren’t awesome enough, my headshots have headshots–translation–my bullets, on the way to some dude’s head, pull out their own tiny guns and headshot some other dude with even tinier bullets before slamming into the original dude’s head that they’re aimed at. No shit. Just wait till I train my bullets to launch tiny grenades or better yet, wait for me to perfect the grenade headshot–it’s not a myth.

When I beat Uncharted the first time I didn’t even have a television. I plugged the audio from the PS3 into my headphones and beat the whole game blind. What’s your excuse, Horatio Nelson? Oh, right, you’re dead. Didn’t stop John Paul Jones, and he was a TERRORIST!!!

I got so good at Uncharted that on my second playing, in the fourth chapter, in Crushing mode mind you, a dialog box popped up and gave me the option of playing the rest of the game with Nathan facing backwards, lining up my shots with a hand-mirror he holds. What do they think I am, a n00b? It’d be nice to have a challenge for once. In the last level, when you’re supposed to beat Navarro in hand-to-hand combat, Navarro just laid down on his stomach and put his hands behind his head. I killed him anyway.

To be clear–my Uncharted is so strong it makes Kevin Pereira’s ping pong look like Helen Keller’s ping pong. Don’t even get me started on how I make Helen Keller’s Uncharted look. Shitty, that’s how.

Just making sure everyone out there knows exactly how good of a gamer I am. Very.

Lark

They have four cats, I think, and just had a baby. To keep the cats away, but so they can still hear the baby, they are planning on putting a screen door on their nursery. That’s actually a good idea, but that didn’t stop me from remarking that it would be the most trailer trash nursery ever.

Phase 2 of their plan? Leaving the screen door on the child’s room until he’s 18. That’s how Jesus would want it done.

Oh noes! I just realized that if my brother searches for “screen door” and “nursery,” he’ll come across my super-secret blog! I hope he doesn’t see the picture on my “About” page, that’d really cement his suspicions that this blog is in fact run by…his BROTHER. (cue organ music)

Operating systems are getting more promiscuous about net connections, not less: expect operating systems to start seeking out Bluetooth-enabled 3G phones and using them to reach out to the net when nothing else is available.

Later, he wrote:

In the era of cheap and easy virtualisation and sandboxing, there’s no reason users shouldn’t be able to partition their computers into “dirty” public-facing sides and “clean” private sides. Of course, a user might subvert this separation deliberately, but the only way to comprehensively prevent that from occurring is to make it possible for a user to get the job done without needing to do so.

It’s a very interesting article, definitely worth a read. One thing he barely touches on is how IT employees (in my experience) are the most abusive of security policy. They feel like since they know the reason for the rules, they can safely break them. Like they’re above it. Above it–wait, where have I heard that before?