Category Archives: uncategorized

Three Legged Race

Fake Steve Jobs on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal: The Borg-Yahoo merger won’t work. Here’s why. It’s like taking the two guys who finished second and third in a 100-yard dash and tying their legs together and asking for a rematch, believing that now they’ll run faster. More here (warning: Fake Steve sometimes has a potty mouth).

The Joy of Tech offer its take on the deal.

Frankly, I think Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo smacks of desperation. They are scared out of their pants by Google, and this is the best idea they can come up with.

The only effect I can see it having on my life is that Microsoft will own Flickr, which will suck, because I used to have a Flickr account, but then I had to get a Yahoo account to use Flickr when Yahoo bought Flickr. Wonder what happens to my account now? Might be easier just to find a new place to store my online photos. Bleh.

Meet Sybil

This is Sybil.

Isn’t she pretty? She’s a Parkwood. That’s Australian Blackwood on her.

I picked her up on December 30, and Guitar Center let me have her for the January price (which was significantly lower). I checked her out a couple days before that and pretty much fell in love.

She’s a hybrid (yes, I finally bought a hybrid), so I can get acoustic and electric sounds out of her with ease. And she plays very nicely. She uses electric strings, and I’ve been playing my Alvarez almost exclusively and neglecting my Rickenbacker for so long that she’s amazingly easy to play.

Tonight was the first I used her for more than just messing around. We had Worship Team practice at church, so I plugged her right into the PA through a direct box. She sounded great. The acoustic sound was fantastic.

While I was at Guitar Center and spending money as if it were no object, I went ahead and picked up a Floor POD, too.

So I have a pretty sweet setup right now.

Which is good, because Tom and I are finally working on some recording, which we’ve been intending to do but not actually doing for far too long.

Now the question is: do I keep the Rickenbacker or sell it off? I’m definitely keeping the Alvarez, for two reasons. One, I love its rich, dark sound. Two, I’d like to have a real, honest-to-goodness acoustic around, just in case. But the Rickenbacker…. I don’t know. I just can’t see where I’d use it in the foreseeable future.

Resolved, 2008

Well, last year’s resolutions didn’t work out all that well. So this year, to save time, I’ll just use the same resolutions:
1) Drop 25 pounds (I actually did have a net loss of about five pounds in 2007, but I think that can largely be attributed to the stomach virus I got in late December).
2) Read the entire Bible. So far, so good. Haven’t missed a day yet. Grace wants to do it this year, too, so we’re trying to find time every day to do it together.
3) More sleep. And I’m adding: more exercise. Right now I mostly exercise at night, but I’d like to start doing that in the morning. So my goal is to get to bed by midnight every night, then be up by six to exercise before going to work. This is something I’ll have to work up to.
4) Oh yeah, and one new one: this website needs a graphic overhaul in a baaaad way.

What have you resolved to do or do better in 2008?

What Does Your Code Look Like?

Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror writes:
The next time you’re knee deep in arcane language geekery, remember this: nobody cares what your code looks like. Except for us programmers. Yes, well-factored code written in a modern language is a laudable goal. But perhaps we should also focus a bit more on things the customer will see and care about, and less on the things they never will.

Your customers don’t (or shouldn’t) care about certain things: what language the program is written in, how elegant your code is, how well refactored your code is, etc. But they will care when you can provide upgrades and bug fixes faster because your code is easy enough to maintain.