There's a theory that you never actually forget anything - the memory is intact but the last pathway to it gets dropped. The upshot is, if you can forge a new neural pathway to one part of the memory, the whole thing becomes available immediately.

In computer science we would call this a memory leak, and it would be a bad thing.

Last night at the roller derby post-after-party-party I found myself mouthing with great accuracy the words to a song I can't even believe I listened to in the first place:

Give me that donkey butt and them big old legs,
I ain't too proud to beg.
Ain't no shame in this game.
I'm going to break it down and beg like James:
Please, &c.

I want my brain back, ok?

- Z

So I've been totally effing swamped at work. As a result I haven't got a whole lot to report, and what I do have to report is pretty dang boring. My world the last couple weeks has been mostly just me, my cats, and my nurbs.

I managed to avoid getting any Action Items on Thursday and, being a dude who works at home, fucked around all day. But don't worry nine-to-fivers, karma's coming to get me this weekend. The client's near deadline on their North American SAP Integration Project and somehow my dorky little drawing program* is mission-critical. Go figure.

But I'm such a loser - even when I'm 'fucking around' it can still be loosely considered to be 'professional development.' I've been fiddling around with Amazon Web Services . I think this stuff is great for small application developers. You can build a server appliance from the OS on up to your custom applications and deploy it on as many [virtualized] servers as you need, with 'practically unlimited' bandwidth and storage. Everything is metered but the prices seem pretty reasonable. Server time starts at 10 cents per hour, which is about $75/mo if you leave it on.

You can also mark your application bundle as requiring payment, with pretty flexible pricing options. The plan seems to be that you'd sell a turnkey solution to the general public, but I could see negotiating pricing with a client and using Amazon to collect setup & support fees.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this knowledge, but I figured I'd share with you geeky types.

- Z


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• Somehow I've become a graphics programmer. You'd think that would be an easy field to be in, and I admit it's kind of fun sailing through meetings about browser incompatibilities, database architecture, legacy integration, and usability bugs without getting any action items. But when all you ever say on-site is variations on 'yeah I understand where you're coming from but that's not really my problem,' the client starts to wonder why they're paying you.** But when a bug really is mine and the answer is something like 'woops - forgot to overwrite C0 in the Type 2 tint transform function when converting an RGB separation to CMYK, ha ha silly me' it tends to remind them. I can read PDF documents with a text editor, and that freaks me out.

• Although yesterday when trying to get the [somewhat difficult] web app developer to do something the client urgently needed, I whipped off an SQL query over the phone while a roomful of people just kind of stared at me. I think they were making fun of me but I sort of didn't have a whole lot of patience at the time.

I just drove home from the Captiol Region and holy crap I haven't seen traffic this bad since I left the New York metro area. Granted the weather could have been more cooperative but I've certainly driven in worse without shitting myself. To call it a 'bloodbath' would not give enough credit to the little joys of mass murder.

I almost died a few miles past Syracuse. There was a slowdown in the right lane that everyone was passing on the left. Afterwards, the two drivers ahead of me had gotten over to the right lane; I opted to stay in the [now clear] left lane. I had half-passed the car in front when I saw it jerk away from me. I thought I'd be in the clear when he came fishtailing back, but he overcorrected faster than I thought and swerved directly at me diagonally across the Thruway. I swerved onto the center shoulder, which was wider at that point, avoiding the other car by maybe six inches tops. I hit the unpaved slush and held on for dear life. I managed to keep control and not fishtail. I corrected, got back in my lane, and booked the FUCK out of there. Watching in the rearview I saw Homeboy had kept it on the road and was driving right down the middle.

Then I spent an hour in a traffic jam- the kind where you'd really like to put the car in park until it all clears up, except you can't because it's moving about 5mph for 20ft every two minutes.

I thought I was home free when I passed Rochester until I saw a whole row of flashing lights across the eastbound lanes. They'd closed the eastbound lanes at the Pembroke exit overpass and were directing all traffic off the exit, around, and back onto the entrance. I had to exit for gas and the ticket taker said there was a 7-car accident. When I got back on the road, eastbound traffic was stopped past the Clarence rest stop. Thank God I dodged that bullet, yipes.

Trip: 300mi, 7hr, average speed 42.8mph.

- Z

Huh.



- Z

I had a busy day Tuesday. Some good, some bad, but man it kicked my ass. At 11am I dashed back from the client's office to the contractor's office to fix some stuff before I had to go back to the client at 3pm. For those who don't work downtown or drive, 11am is probably the worst time to find a spot. Even latecomers are at work by then, but it's too early for anyone to have gone home. As is often the case, the Mohawk ramp was full so I went a couple blocks to the lot by the library. It's a huge expanse of pavement and I made a beeline straight for the last row, which was nearly full.

I found a spot right away but as I pulled closer I found out why it was a spot. Some douche had taken up about 1.1 parking spaces - probably about 18 inches over on the driver's side. Too pressed for time to be angry, I did the math, slid my 0.85-car-width Japanese subcompact right in, and got on my way.

Now at this point I should mention that when I came back to my car it was parked dead-nuts center. That could have left maybe two inches between the cars, max - not even wide enough to get to the door, much less open it. Some people have asked and yes I did briefly consider the possibility of a spite sideswipe but it wasn't borne out by the relative-perceived-worth test [other car was a Mercedes sedan].

So I went back to my car around 3pm dreading trying to squeeze back out, which is often harder than squeezing in. But when I got back to my car I found the situation had resolved itself with a cherry on top. Not only had Mr Congeniality vacated the premises ... not only did he avoid sideswiping me on the way out ... but he tucked this award under my windshield!



Knowing that he'd spent the time finding an envelope and a pen, and stood out in the freezing cold writing this out just for me, totally made my day. Maybe he'd even waited to give it to me in person! As you can tell I hung it up in a place of honor.

But then he stole my ticket! The attendant puts the ticket under your windshield wiper and gives you the stub, and he stole my ticket! It's not like they couldn't charge me based on the stub, and it's not like I didn't already have to pay the full daily fare, but still.

And see I think he got off easy. You can't do that shit in a pay lot because if you take up two spots, that's one spot they can't charge for, and fuck if they'll let that happen. They'll tow your ass. Instead all he had to do was a little freestyle pilates over this snug little piece of equipment:



'cause for $54,075, you don't get bench seats.

- Z