Phoenix Rising

Just a fair warning:

I am going to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix tomorrow.  Therefore, my next entry will probably be a spoiler-laden review.

If you care, and are avoiding spoilers, give me a day or to and come back then.

The Storm of the Century!

There's an episode of Dharma and Greg where Greg takes over Dharma's pirate radio station.

(Just go with me on this.)

He really gets into it, and at one point in an intro for a record, says, (paraphrased), "To the weathermen out there:  this is San Francisco.  It rains from time to time here.  You don't have to stand outside or take video: we know what rain looks like.  And do it from a weather desk, not from Storm Watch Central.  Oh, and we have 98 years to go.  Let's not be hasty and call something the 'storm of the century.'"

(To preface this, I did not go looking for this quote; it showed up as a new article in one of my general Mac news RSS feeds.)

A Macworld article says in its first line: "Apple's iPhone could emerge as the most succesful product introduction of the 21st century, new research suggests."

I love my iPhone, Moya.

But it's 2007.  We have 93 years to go.  Let's not be hasty, hm?

In Which I Prove Again That I'm a Nerd

I could complain about the 1/2 hour long rant I got before (or rather, the first half hour of) my home-teaching job today about the blended family dramas going on between A. and A.  Or the fifteen more minutes of it afterwards -- which included some of the drama with the oldest daughter too.

Of course, just like practicing social skills and self-control skills now that A. will need when he comes back to school in the fall -- assuming his immune system is robust enough -- building a good relationship with mom will help in the fall the first day A. has issues and the inclusion support person is not available.

I could also complain about my rampaging writer's block which has stalled three stories at the nearly completed stage and has rendered the most vivid mental images I have had in a long time a jumbled mishmash of words that won't even resolve into script format -- which I do sometimes if the dialogue (my weakest point) is actually really flowing.

Or I could stress about whether Miss T. will be at school tomorrow, because although Miss C. and I muddled along -- and although we eventually got a sub (at 10:15 -- and said sub had only ever worked with kids in the resource program at the middle school) -- keeping a lid on R (who has responded well to both a change in bus driver and positive behavior support plan Miss T. wrote for a class), who suddenly not only had to deal with sharing my attention -- which has been hard for him anyway -- he had to share it with about 5 other kids, because Miss C....

...well, because of Miss C.

Or, of course, I could berate myself again for not writing to two friends who've found my blog recently -- but summarizing my recent life is complicated at best.

I could worry about all of these things, but instead I am going to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am a total nerd.

When I first set up my iPhone (sorry Cat) I had to find a name for it. All of my other iPods have had singularly uncreative names like "My iPod" or "My New iPod" or "2nd Generation Shuffle."

I was inspired by a few blogs I read online to find a better name for my new iPhone: it is now named Moya, after the ship on Farscape.  I have also renamed my 2nd generation shuffle to Talyn, after another ship on Farscape.  I considered Enterprise, but I'm just in a Farscapey mood -- which suggests that my main, large iPod (named, get this, "5th Gen iPod") will probably become Lo'La, which is the last remaining Good Guy ship (unless I go for the generic Prowler or Module).

I have just named electronic devices after sci-fi ships.

Like, officially, as in the registered name that shows up when they appear on my desktop -- not as in a semi-affectionate nickname, such as my old computer Sparky (thus named after a cranky artificial personality on Babylon 5 -- as you can imagine, Sparky has Issues).

Can we get a chorus of "I'm a Nerd"?

Weird Commercial

So, ATT has this commercial where the tagline is something on the line of "your world is wireless."

That's not what's weird.

What's weird is -- they showed a bunch of people on a plane using wireless.

Unless I missed a memo, having your cell phone on during an airplane flight is a big no-no.

Wonder if that counts as false advertising?

I Give It A Week

You know, if you want hackers to leave your DRM alone -- don't go saying the DRM will take 10 years to break.

That's like telling Captain Kirk that your ship could beat the Enterprise in a race.  Just sayin'.

So, you know, Sony -- dumb move.  Way to challenge the hackers, y'know?

Anti-intutive?

The word, my friend, is "counterintuitive."

Counter = opposite to.

From dictionary.com:
–adverb
1. in the wrong way; contrary to the right course; in the reverse or opposite direction.
2. contrary; in opposition (usually prec. by run or go): to run counter to the rules.
–adjective
3. opposite; opposed; contrary.
–noun
4. something that is opposite or contrary to something else.

Intuitive = your intuition.

Counterintuitive = the opposite of what your intuition would say.

From dictionary.com:

coun·ter·in·tu·i·tive 
adj. Contrary to what intuition or common sense would indicate: "Scientists made clear what may at first seem counterintuitive, that the capacity to be pleasant toward a fellow creature is ... hard work"

No results found for anti-intuitive.

In other words:  It is intuitive that the sample calculations are on the sample calculations page.  It is counterintuitive that the results graphs are in the table of contents.  Anti-intuitive is not a word.

Sigh.

Website Update

For what it's worth -- I know many of you who I know in real life aren't interested in my fannish endeavors -- I have updated my website. While I've changed how I present my videos, the main update here is a new story, "What You Don't Know."

The story is set sometime shortly after the Stargate SG-1 series finale, "Unending." As such, it contains spoilers for that episode. If you haven't seen it -- and care about such things -- you probably don't want to read yet.

Oddly enough, Teal'c's voice was more of a challenge than Jack's -- for Jack, I just had to challenge my inner snarkiness. For Teal'c, though, I found it hard to mimic his stilted, overly-formal way of speaking without making it ridiculous.

One of the pairings is canon; the other is not, but hinted at.

My favorite section:

"But...Mitchell!  He's -- he's a weenie."

Teal'c was fairly certain that Jack wasn't speaking of a hot dog -- which was his only reference for the word -- especially given the scornful tone to his voice, but he found nothing to say in response.

Fun Time Waster

Wikiquote rocks.

I'm currently reading 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 quotes, when I really should be doing something productive.