Thursday, September 30, 2004

Wow!

So the technology for storing something like a terabyte of info on one disk is a few years away! Sweet! I remember when my family had a 286 16Mhz AT computer with a 10 megabyte hard drive, I had no concept of computer storage then, then I got a 386 with what I think was like 120 megabytes, then I quickly learned the rule… you will use up whatever space you have, no matter how much you have… which has held true for the past 10 years, damn. My desktop had 160 gigs and I still hovered around 5-20 gigs of free space, taking up space with music, video, and backups and disk images… I have been trying to follow Sony’s Blu-Ray format, which should be able to fit about 50 gigs per disk (That will probably hold me over until the Terabyte disks get here). The HD-DVDs are interesting but don't seem to hold as much potential as the Blu-Ray format. For the time being I will just probably move on to getting a dual layered DVD writer once my income allows me to (It would be nice to at least halve the number of backup data DVDs i have right now) So bring on the terabyte storage, I am sure I will find a way to use that up as well.


Italian food and the Treo650

Well remember my wanting the Treo650? Of course I still want but I was just thinking about one of the many ways I could use it the other day… I was sitting eating one of the mean heavenly Italian sandwiches that are everywhere in many of the Tabbachi and Wine Bars around here, and I wanted to just gush over the virtues of Italian cuisine, on my new little weblog, well of course Ii couldn’t… unless… I had a treo650! (yeah I guess I could have done it with some other smart phones a well).


Oh well, on to Italian Cusine:

Here, plain ole, everyday Italian sandwiches are like what you would have to go to some nice deli in the US. The ingredients are usually top notch, and they always ask if you want it toasted! Note: I love toasted sandwiches, contrary to what my Dutch friend told me ("Only silly Americans are so obsessive about toasting") The Italians are the toast masters! When the above thought popped into my head I was happily savouring a marinated eggplant sandwich, garnished with spinach, and a smoked cheese on a toasted flatbread… how could that not be good?

Ok, back to work, reading about fishies.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Even further up on my “gee thanx” list

Two of my main interests are Technology and Agriculture, also I love RSS which has been a boon to my interest in technology (blogs dedicated to *gizmos*! I love it!) but the Aggies out there just haven’t been as quick to adopt the techno-goodness of RSS News Feeds so I have had a hell of a time finding Ag news feeds… until now (kinda). Bloglines.com had a search feature which came up with a lot of goodies, not just moreover.com stuff (which is a bit frustrating) so gee thanks bloglines!

If you are wondering about specific feeds then refer to the left of this page where you should see a list of the feeds I frequent (or go to my publicly viewable subscriptions at kinja.com

Hmmmm...

Asides from focusing, I have just discovered some new Italian chips! I was starting to loose faith in the Italians food producing capability (they seem to have most American foods beat in terms of taste and quality) thinking that the US Junk food industry is still king, then I happened upon "Cipster". Not sure how to explain it, and of course taste is such a subjective thing anyway, but I like em' Kudos Italia!

Living in Rome

Well, it was a whirlwind of a week. The landlord freaked on us last week and wanted us out, no we (the flatmates and myself) did nothing wrong other than (apparently) press a few buttons. Getting rid of us, some having contracts, having done nothing wrong would have been hard i guess... so she bribed us?! Yep, two months worth of rent paid to us to get out, yep, its a first for me. But knowing she would have made life miserable for us, waiving that money in our faces, etc we "took the money and ran". Of course it has been a PITA, trying to find an apartment while living out of a crappy bed and breakfast, finding an apartment but not having it available until the 1st, and then finding a temporary apartment... sigh.

I want, I want, I want!!!

Ah, One of the many disadvantages of being poor… not having the Treo650!.

A guy that works here saw my dinky (though somewhat sufficient in an antiquated kinda way) Treo90, he asked me how I liked it. I said it was ok, then he pulled out his Sony/Erricson P900… ugh, how sweet art thou?! I couldn’t even begin to count the ways. Was he showing off? Could but, but if you got it then flaunt it, I hold no grudges.

Now if he had a Treo650! (fat chance since it isn’t even being sold yet), then I would have been willing to do all sorts of menial and degrading things to dink around with it… oh well, until a diploma and a nice phat salary come my way I probably will not be seeing it.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Feeling uncharacteristically generous…

I was just using my Gmail account, did a search for an email and it just popped up, it blew Netscape/Moz and outlook’s (especially outlooks) search options out’a the water! It made me think, gee, Gmail rox!… Duh. Another thought (yes, this is going somewhere), My favourite little ’chan was telling me how she gave an account to a friend of hers and how the friend appreciated it; to me *that* is what makes it worth it, a person using such power (for good or evil, take your pick) and appreciating it… So (the point), I have some Gmail invites left, am tired of gmail swap (though I am not sure why) so if you email me and tell my why you want a Gmail account then maybe I will send you an invite, good enough? (and please, none of the I will use it to help gay, homeless, mal-nourished bush babies in Saharan Africa; I require *real* reasons like Gmail goodness would rock my world because…)

Still can't figure out the clippings part...

Any help would be appreciated here. I want to make some of my clippings folders publicly accessible. I am fascinated by the Asian female (especially Japanese) obsession with cute cuddly things (such as myself). But really, "Hello Kitty" is *still* (after I don't know how many years) insanely popular and can be found on everything from antibacterial pens to blue tooth headsets. Until then I will probably just make a mini-site of hello kitty links, and of course dedicate it to my Favourite hello kitty fan, Akiko.

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Yahoo sux!

ok, that’s not true but the "page builder" and the "advanced editor" kinda work against each other though. Would be nice if I could use it in conjunction with dream weaver... but that would involve paying, not happening.

So, I transferred bits and pieces of the umpteenth carnation of my website (one would think it would start looking better, nope). So as with many things in my life it is a work in progress.

For posterity…

Well the test post worked, and this is a hell of a lot easier than editing html code like I was doing (when I wasn’t at my own computer). As a result I added very little to my page in terms of thoughts so I thought I would c/p some of the thoughts from the old page to this page so no one misses anything (yeah yeah, typos galore, if you aren’t impressed then you should try editing some html using vim via telnet!)


May ??, 2004. Well very little is new (refering to the last incarnation of My Page), it was brought to my attention that my original page (which was born out of boredom, not the urge to impress, an inspirational slap in the face, etc.) was a bit stale and out of date (well, that one of the links was blank, and the other didn't work). So, this page is dedicated to Ms. Chrisann! My favorite blonde haired blue eyed Japanese speaker who was the one who happened upon my page.

It is amusing how many people have found my page, especially considering that i really haven't told anyone about it, oh well ;>

June 17th 2004. I felt like writting and i am using vim to write this little segment through secure shell... not the easiest way but since there is no online web editor its all i gots to work with.
My thouhts today? bunches, but the #1 Is the monkey we americans are forced to call president, and the monkey that just passed away (Regan). I am an avid NPR fan, can't get enough of it but it *really* seemed like it was just another press organization talking about Regan's passing away and every aspect of his life. He was one of the most charasmatic (sp?) presidents we have had and thats about the extent of his talents. He implemented some of the worst ideas *ever* that are now being re-played by our current president. It really makes me ill to hear this guy being idolized over and over and over, HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT!!! Besides every one is "a nice guy" when they die, get over it. I am not some hemp wearing hippie nor am I some conservitive nazi, I am registered independant (but can't stand Nader for his lack of realistic ideas); hard to please i suppose.

September 10, 2004. Strange, for some reason i have totally lost the will to read about breeding Tilapia. Anyway, at the moment (to bring you up to speed) I am interning at the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) to complete my Masters. I like it well enough here, my advisor is probably one of the best " bosses" I have ever had. I am trying to get up to speed on Tilapia (a breed of fish) since this year will be focused on them... more specificly it will be (this is what i have so far) "Sanitation in relation to feedstuffs derived from agricultural byproducts with the eventual goal of developing commercial production".Nothing like a wildman and his fishfood eh? Other news? I'm living in Rome (Italy, not Georgia) and in about 3 months will be heading over to Babngkok.

September 16, 2004. This will be short, but i was struck with two definitions i found while reading some Aquaculture journals. In my school program the words "sustainable development" are bandied around like a ping pong ball, the program itself is notorious for complicating things, including those two words. I prefer simplicity (even though it isn't always an option):

From the "Brundtland Report" - Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the future generations to meet thier own needs"

Or even better

IUCN's - "Sustainable developement improves people'- lity of life within the context of the earth'"Sustainable developement improves people's quality of life within the context of the earth's carrying capacity".

...ok then, its been a long day and its barely 1:30pm, so time to sign off and finish up my real work.