afongen

I’ve started work on a project in which I need to generate bar graphs, so naturally I turned to GD::Graph, a Perl module for doing just that. I expected that when I created my first image, I’d be excited to have accomplished something moderately difficult (or at least typing-intensive) like creating an image out of nowhere. But it was too easy. It only took a few minutes before I had my first PNG. How terribly unsatisfying. :-)

Congratulations to our friends Jim & Camille Holthaus on the birth of their son Jacob. And to their first son, Robert, who now has a little brother to play with.

One by one, my coworkers are switching to Firebird. A few have been using IE, most were Netscape users. It’s been fun listening to them comment to one another as they switch about how very cool it is.

Oh yeah.

For those who still use IE as their default browser, I point to my demonstration of the dangers of HTML mail. I’ve just added to the demo, taking advantage of the fact that IE has access to clipboard contents (via Tim McGuire).

The fun never ends.

A guy at work (let’s call him Mike. It’s his name.) just sold his Porsche. The car is sitting in his garage, waiting for the shippers to pick it up, when he finds the car being sold in eBay. Only it isn’t being sold by the new owner. Whoever’s making this fraudulent sale even set up a Geocities web page that copies word-for-word Mike’s web page about the car. The photo on eBay? That’s Mike’s front yard.

Not sure how long this will stay up on eBay, take a peek while you can.

The problem with library books is that when I buy a book that I very badly want to read (say, Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver), I feel compelled to finish the library books first. This isn’t really a problem since I read pretty fast, but I start to resent the books that I’m trying to blow through. They’re holding me back. Hennepin County Libraries make it very easy to renew online, but lately I’ve been unable to renew the books because someone else has them reserved.

So this weekend, I must finish The Overseer. This could be tricky, as I never have the reading time that I want on the weekends.

As mentioned before, Richard Gabriel has been promoting the idea of a Master of Fine Arts in Software.

It looks like it might actually happen: the University of Illinois is seriously considering the idea.

I’ve suggested the idea to computer science faculty I know, but they just smile tolerantly at me, amused that I could be so droll. Clearly I’m talking to the wrong people.

I’m learning that if I don’t mention something here within a couple days of thinking of it, it might be months before I get around to it.