Re: Happy Summer Solstice!

[http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert (robert)]

 > From: "Mike McQueen" <http://www.gte.net/~mike.mcqueen>
 > Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2003 02:53:21 -0700
 >
 > Hi Robert great to hear from you as always.  I've spawned a
 > get_email_address( Mike Hamrick ) daemon, it should produce some output in a
 > few days.

Good.  I'll be happy when I can run all my own servers on my own computer.
Then, I can have as many e-mail addresses as I want.  Yey.

 > Ah, Ca.  Glad to hear you're moving back.  In a way, I envy you.
 > There are some undeniably very Good things about Ca, and the Bay
 > Area in particular.

Yeah.  'Though, admittedly,  is not exactly the center of action in
the Bay Area.

 > I don't understand this aversion to buying books on Amazon.  In fact, I
 > can't imagine buying (new) books anywhere else.  You typically get 20% off
 > the cover price, and if you order over $25 at a time, shipping is free.  So,
 > what's the problem?

Principle: software patents.  Also, they're helping to put small
independent book sellers out of business ('though, it seems like the
internet in general is doing that, Amazon or not).  It is sometimes
possible to get lower prices than Amazon, BTW.  Usually the competing
prices are a few bucks over the Amazon price, anyway.

 > Am I being short-sighted?  Is this some great Evil I am
 > helping to perpetrate?  Then you go on to say that ordering fountain pen
 > supplies over the internet is "inconvenient."

Well, I should have said "much more expensive".  Even with Ma
sales tax, ordering fountain pen supplies over the internet is generally
more expensive ("inconvenient") due to shipping costs.

 > No car: Understood.  No kids:
 > Understood.  No TV: Understood. (Ok, you have a TV, but you correctly
 > realize its limited usefulness.  I haven't had one for 5 years.)

Yeah.  Last night, I said to myself "gee, there are these movies on
tonight -- I'll save some money by watching these movies on TV rather than
renting some.

 > Amazon:  I
 > don't get it!! Please enlighten.

See http://www.noamazon.com,
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html#AmazonEComm ,
and http://www.booksense.com

 > Unfortunately I've come to realize that refried beans, while tasty, have an
 > undesirable effect on my digestive system.  Beano(tm) probably would serve
 > to remedy that, but I'm to cheap to spring for it.

I always remember this chick at Evergreen (I think her name was Sedoni or
Sedonie or Sedone or something) was an aspiring vegetarian and she said
that, at that point, she got gas from eating meat rather than beans
because her body had got used to eating beans.  I suspect my body has
adapted in that way, too.

 > I do still eat burritos
 > though.  The best one I had recently was from one of those mobile mexican
 > van/bus/restaurant type things.  I say "mobile" but this particular one is,
 > by all appearances, permanently rooted in the parking lot of a Union 76
 > station on the corner of NE 24th Street and 148th Ave NE in Bellevue.

Yeah.  There are a lot of those sorta things on the west coast.  There are
none on the east coast, in my experience.

 > My current culinary quest is for the Perfect Seafood Chow Mein.  I have a
 > friend in Tokyo who is lavish with praise for a particular chow mein
 > prepared by a particular chef at a particular restaurant there.  So I've
 > made it my goal to find the same over here.  So far I've only tried Seattle
 > and L.A... I've got some work ahead of me.

When I visited Seattle a few years ago (or was it 2002?  I forget), I was
surprised how many seafood/fish places there were.  For some reason, I
didn't remember it always being that way.

 > I didn't realize you were so into Speech recognition as a hobby.  I recently
 > read a story about the couple who started the Dragon Naturally Speaking
 > company/technology, very interesting, I thought.

Do you remember where you read it?  I assume it was about the Bakers.

 > My last contract at
 > Microsoft was in the Speech.NET SDK Tools group.  Sadly, speech recognition
 > just isn't *there* yet.  And probably won't be for 30-50 years.  Current
 > speech tools being developed by MS are largely directed towards automated
 > call centers and other institutional uses.  Oh, and at a contract before
 > that I worked on the Windows XP Plus Pack, which included the MS Office
 > speech engine bundled as an extension to the Windows Media Player.  It would
 > accept commands like "Media Player Play Track One", "Media Player Eject",
 > etc.  Of course, you could also say "Media Player Hot Mustard" and get some
 > kind of (in)consistent behavior.  Sigh.

Yeah.  But, knowing about the technology now will sit me well for the
future.  Besides, I think it'll be more like 10 years.  Computers keep
getting faster and faster, and it's speed that's really needed -- the
algorithms are already there.

 > BART is great.  Bikes on BART is great too.  I lived in  for ohmaybe
 > 6 months before I moved back up here, took BART to S.F. for work, great
 > exercise, great 30 minutes of reading/ramp-up/ramp-down time every day, each
 > way.

Who knows where I'll be working.  I've been phone interviewing at
PeopleSoft (which are in Pleasanton).  The commute (according to
http://www.transitinfo.org/TakeTransit ) would only take 51 minutes
without a car.  Of course, I'd probably never see San Francisco again,
but...

 > At this point, I'm just rambling... so, take care.
 > 
 > Mike
 > http://www.gte.net/~mike.mcqueen
 > 425.881.7011
 > 
 > PS: gte.net = verizon.net I love my DSL.  Sorry to hear you've had problems.

What's funny is that last week, it happened again -- my DSL modem just
kept blinking.  But, thankfully, this time, it came back by the end of the
day.  I was on the verge of cancelling my DSL and going to dial-up until I
left.  I guess I won't have to do that.

 > As much as I hate the concept of corporate behemoth phone companies, I have
 > to admit, my Verizon DSL service has been really excellent.  I've been with
 > them for about 3 years now, and my monthly rate has actually gone DOWN
 > twice!!

Yes, they are cheap.

I'm planning on either SpeakEasy or Sonic.net when I reach the Bay Area.
Verizon doesn't allow you to run your own servers.  I especially look
forward to file sharing via Freenet 'cause there's this project to put
Debian onto all file sharing.  That's what I want!  I could depend upon
individual people's computers rather than the centralized file servers
that everyone else is competing for.