shikora.org

I took a bunch of photos in font of my house so I could try and stitch together some panoramic snowpacalypse shots. Here’s the first result. Some things I’ve learned in the process, iPhoto doesn’t do image stitching and photoshop does a resonable job but gets confused if you don’t do it right. In case you want to do something similar, here are the instructions I found helpful.

Last year I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific. I took a some video of the place and the “behind the scenes” tour. Here’s a link to the video. It’s a 1.5 gig file, so watch out for that. I haven’t figured out a way to embed video directly in the post yet. Once I do I’ll update the post.

I love aquariums and have been to a number around the country. This one in particular has some truly amazing displays, especially their tropical reef displays. I had been to this aquarium when it first opened a decade ago. I was there for a Python Conference and missed the last day and part of one evening to hang out there. Recently I worked for a company that sent me to L.A. a couple of times and couldn’t resist going again. Each time I go I am stunned in awe of the beauty.

Oh wow is it ever snowing. I can’t remember the last time we’ve had this much snow for this long. I’ve spent all day watching the fall snow and the wind pick up what was already on the ground and blow that around too. The first year my family and I moved to Oregon it was like this, all winterwonderlandish. I remember riding my dirt bike up and down the streets in my t-shirt while -10 degrees with windchill was nipping at my nose. In 2006 we had an ice storm for a few days that made me ride the bus to work. It was cold, but there just wasn’t that much snow. There were some other ice storms I’ve lived through while living in Oregon. Two of them I remember distinctly as I was trapped and couldn’t travel far for all the ice. This is different. Lots and lots and lots of snow (by Portland standards). It almost reminds me of growing up on the east coast, almost. I remember watching my parents dig out the car from the piles of snow.

I baked cookies today. I made chocolate chip cookies from the recipe on the bag, only I used splenda instead of sugar. They are still way yummy. The only issue is if you use splenda, you have to make the cookies flat to begin with, cause they won’t fall on their own in the oven. I found that out the hard way.

@jaacob showed me a book reader for my iphone the other day that rocks. Its called Stanza. My iPhone is now the dream machine I’ve always known it could be. I’ve read 2 books since putting it on. One was A Christmas Carol which I could download for free in the app. It was really interesting to read all the descriptions of food and parlor games people played back in the day (19th century style). For some reason I don’t read books unless I can carry them around in a portable device. I guess it’s just way more convenient.

There was question posted on craigslist recently that coincided with some discussions I’ve had with people recently. I figured I’d try and answer it here.

The question is: “The rapid increase in computing technology has greatly benefited mankind in many obvious ways. However, over-reliance on programs and formulas has also allowed for disastrous financial strategies such as credit default swaps. How do you strike a balance between the benefits and risks of computing technology’s growing role in our daily lives?”

My answer isn’t really cut and dry, but more the start of a conversation. Computer technology is just a tool, another tool in a long list of disruptive tools created and used throughout human history. It is how we use the tools that determines our quality of life, both as individuals and as a society. Tools do not change the essential nature of being, that is created by our actions to ourselves and others. As an example, it wasn’t financial instruments that caused the mortgage crises, it was people using them in unethical and illegal ways. The real question isn’t how we strike a balance with technology, any more then we need to strike a balance with hammers and can openers. The balance we have to find is within ourselves. That balance will be reflected in how we use the tools around us and what we accomplish with them.

Last weekend we took Shayna to see Santa for the first time. We went to the Fire Station museum on SE Belmont. It was a lot of fun. She enjoyed playing with the equipment she could reach. I’d like to take her back there when it’s fully open to the public. They have a fire engine that has a steam driven water pump. It looked very steam punk. They have a firetruck simulator that they promised felt “just like the real thing”. They also had firefighting equipment old and new that was fun to check out. Here’s the picture they took of her on Santa’s lap. She cried the whole time.

Shayna's first trip to see santa.

Hey there. I finally spend some quality time with my site. It now runs off of Wordpress 2.7 . It was a Joomla 1.0 site. I realised it was going to be just as much effort to upgrade to Joomla 1.5 as it was to switch over to Wordpress. After some annoying glitches, some having to do with me setting up the site in one folder, then moving it to another, others with using cform to set up the Contact Me section, it looks like its working. You still have to register to leave a comment unfortunately. I trust spammers to leave me alone as much as I trust George W. Bush to be able to speak in complete sentences. If you have something to say though, please leave comment. I’d really like to hear what you think of the new site.