Entries in "Web"
Feynman and Other Geekery
Earlier this year, I took "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" with me on one of my graduate school visits and had a terrific time reading it on the Rapid and in the airport. I got so wrapped up in the life and thoughts of Richard Feynman that I hardly realized when I'd arrived. Today I came across a documentary with him, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out on Google Video. For anyone with fifty minutes to spare--finals end today, right?--I highly recommend it.
In other geeky news that I managed to miss while worrying about finals, one of my childhood idols, Eileen Collins, has announced that she is retiring from the space shuttle program.
I Miss My Computer
Like many computer-savvy users today, I've been taking full advantage of the customizability of programs like Mozilla Firefox and the freedom to define my own internet-powered entertainment through feed aggregators. Sitting at my keyboard, I'm in control and I can whiz through one task after another with ease. Middle-click here to pull up a useful link in a new tab; switch to Thunderbird to check e-mail; flip back to Firefox and use the Case directory searchbar to look up the person e-mailing me; have Winamp compile a new playlist for me based on that great song that just came on--the ease and usefulness of this personalized computing is endless.
Until I'm not in front of my computer. Then, I'm a drunkard: tripping over unfamiliar keys, muttering when I can't find something on an unfamiliar operating system, cursing when the middle-click doesn't work on the mouse (or, God forbid, the mouse has no middle button!), and quickly running out of things to do when I realize that I can't remember all of my favorite bookmarks and my Google Reader account doesn't contain all of the juicy feeds I normally read.
It's a sad compromise. You can get everything you could ever want just the way you want it, but only on one computer. Whenever you have to plug into a different computer, your personalizations are gone (unless, of course, you conduct all of your business through a web portal, but I have yet to find one of those that really appeals to me).
Alas. If only my department's computer lab allowed Remote Desktop capabilities! Maybe that's too much to ask. I'd settle for the ability to use a stripped down version of Firefox. Having all these IE windows open is annoying.
Spammers
I think I've gotten around 20 spam trackbacks on here in the last 36 hours. This is just ridiculous. Is anyone else getting pounded?
Can't Resist The (IT) Meme
Sometimes there are memes worth following, and I think people have the right idea with the top IT services meme (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.) So here are the aspects I love and hate about computing at Case:
Continue reading "Can't Resist The (IT) Meme"
MIT Weblog Survey 2005
"MIT" has been my number one keyword search result all month. I thought I'd add to that through the spirit of scientific inquiry.
