spazquest spazblog

And there you have it ...

2009-11-30T20:49:00.000-08:00

And that wraps up a whole month of blog posts. Well, I missed a few days here and there. :|

dream

2009-11-07T07:10:00.000-08:00

I had a hella weird dream last nightIt was quite a long dream ... I spent weeks in my rural hometown. In the house where I was staying there was a wasps' nest. I told someone about a childhood experience with wasps and it occurred to me that, in a sense, they were only harmful because I'd stumbled into them.My grandparents took out a massive loan to convert their farm into a spaceport. We had

password for IE6 app compatibility VPC

2009-11-06T01:56:00.000-08:00

Needed admin rights for something on the IE6 VirtualPC image and couldn't find the password on the web. Someone somewhere will have the same question, so according to the readme for the current image, The Administrator and IETest passwords are P2ssw0rd . Natch.p.s. Happy National Blog Posting Month. Out of a misplaced sense of journalistic integrity I am not back-dating posts to fill in the days

I may never get lost again

2008-12-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

Google Maps street level views are the greatest thing since sliced bread. All I have to do is drop the little dude icon in the middle of the freeway and it shows exactly what the visual landmarks are.Argh!! I just missed the offramp! This is like the 3rd time!!

Not all who jump ship are rats

2008-12-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

I just finished an informal "interview" at blist in Pioneer Square. My brain stalled out when it was my turn to answer questions, but even so, I think there's a >25% chance of getting an offer by Christmas. Before last week I'd never heard of them, but it sounded like they were doing something interesting, which would be a welcome change.No. What they're doing isn't interesting. It's mindblowing.

spam spam spam spam

2008-08-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

You can contact me at erictrue@spazquest.org. Junk mail is accepted if the subject line is absurd enough to make me laugh. Apparently, someone read this and took me up on the offer, because my spam has been improving of late --Two Geeks are making $100,000 per year with a ROBOTWe congratulate! You our client!If only we could vote for Ronald againWork it out I did, making my little calculator run

Neo-Luddite

2008-08-26T00:07:00.000-07:00

Hey Lupin. Looks like your so-called "source" fell off the web. He hasn't posted anything since the Fresh Prince hit his expiration date!Are you even listening?

Water Hazard

2008-05-24T10:35:00.001-07:00

PICK UP THE PHONE BOOTH AND DIE

2008-05-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

(One of many thought-provoking text adventures by Spatch.) And so you were taken from this place to another place, where you had absolutely no damn idea what it is you're supposed to be doing. It's OK, you'll be all right. Just don't pick up the phonebooth, or else you'll die.PICK UP THE PHONE BOOTH AND DIEa NyQuil nightmare by R. NoyesRelease 619 / Serial number 960409 / Inform v1502 Library 5

Automated Alice

2008-05-06T08:30:00.001-07:00

This book is an honest-to-goodness worthy sequel to Alice in Wonderland. And it even has a plot!!!"These vehicles are horseless carriages.""How do you know that the carriages are horseless?" asked Alice."Because they haven't got any real horses drawing them.""I didn't know that real horses could draw. Can they also paint?""Alice! You must know what I mean!" Celia cried. "A horseless carriage is

NOT DEAD YET

2007-10-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

We just finished with Target Multi-Occasion Lists. That was interesting because I got to work with the Yahoo User Interface library (YUI). What fascinated me the most is how many browser bugs haven't been abstracted away yet. We ran into a lot of issues with the way IE manipulates z-index of elements, especially in quirks mode. But it's still been interesting.

My first open-mic standup in 10 years.

2007-05-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

Listen if you dare ... my 3-minute comedy set went okay but I really pandered by creating a 2-dimensional self-parody.

Oscars? Feh.

2007-03-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

This is why I love being off the media "grid": I didn't even know about the Academy Awards until after the ceremony. People arguing the merits of movies I've never seen, actors I wouldn't recognize, and prom dresses I wouldn't be caught dead wearing.[1] Thanks but I'll make do without it.Footnotes:Admittedly, since I'm a guy, and don't wear dresses anyway...

Sheelee

2006-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

<-- This is Sheelee, my former fiancee. We got engaged in January 2004. We were excited and happy.Then things started to die ... It was a long-distance relationship, and I was unemployed at the time, unemployable. I won't go into all the reasons why things didn't work out; frankly, I don't want to think about them. I couldn't decide what to do, and finally decided not to decide.Now that I have a

it's been raining

2006-11-10T02:32:00.000-08:00

My mom called yesterday morning to ask how I was. Has it been raining where you are? Yes, I told her, it had been sprinkling for the last few days. My boss has been working from home and it just dawned on me to read the news and see what the situation was really like. As usual, I was oblivious to the fact that people were experiencing disruptions and property damage just miles away from where I

we launched Timex!

2006-10-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

Now it can be told.For the last 5 months I've been working with the development team on the new Timex website. We launched on Tuesday afternoon [EDIT: October 24, 2006] at 4:00 pm Pacific time, and it was kind of cool being in the "war room" listening to people report in on the speakerphone as the DNS entries propagated quickly across the net. "It's picked up on Guardster already." "E.U., I can

More about CSS

2006-10-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

I've changed my mind about the CSS on our site. It was explained to me that the move to CSS was such a major paradigm shift for our organization that everyone is to be congratulated on how well it turned out. I know the devs were basically starting from scratch and they all have a good working knowledge of CSS now. They, in a word, rock.There, that feels better, now doesn't it? :-)EDIT (20061110

Down in the Software Mines

2006-10-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

So my dad, he sez, how's it goin? And I'm like hmmm.Haven't updated the weblog in a while. We are launching a merchant site in about 2 weeks, so we're doing all the typical last-minute bug fixes. Everyone seems to like my work, which is still somewhat of a shock. (Talented programmers seem to think they're either at the top or bottom of the heap, and I'm not arrogant enough to choose the top ;-)(

And you thought /your/ project had problems!

2006-09-04T00:57:00.000-07:00

So why wasn't Sinistar [for Atari 400/800] released? Around the time Sinistar was being completed (mid 1984), the video game market was crumbling fast and many games were canceled. Apparently marketing decided that the game wasn't going to make enough money and canceled the project... without telling the programmers! Jeff and his team continued to work on the project for almost two months after

I LOVE WORKING UNDER PPPPPRESSURE

2006-08-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

I promised to deliver some unspecified "changes" to the global CSS by tomorrow morning. The graphic designer (Customer Experience lead) is going to review the site over the next few days -- she's leaving the company and we can't stall her any longer. We need to fix some "stuff" related mostly to font sizes.This means I'll be working all night. Actually that sounds like fun. I've been pretty good

On getting lost

2006-08-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble doing effective code reviews. Our team does informal, glance-over reviews of code before check-in, which works when you're building on an established design, but I have trouble seeing how it works for scattered-out bits of code written by the seat of your pants.As the CSS expert[1] on the team, it was my responsibility to create a cohesive CSS structure, and use code review to

Ikea desk

2006-08-24T15:09:00.000-07:00

Well, after much reluctance, I have had an Ikea experience. Voluntarily and not at the behest of my mom. There was the same walking in circles and getting stuck behind slow-moving people that I remembered, but then I found the Work Area area -- and within, the Object of Desire. In this case the Object of Desire was a metal computer desk with a price tag under $40 US. His name is Krister (say

Frustration of being a newbie

2006-08-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

This must be how it feels to be a 70-year-old starting at McDonalds.I'm the only webdev on a team of engineers. They don't talk down to me, which is awesome, but they usually don't have to explain the things I ask about. Maybe it's okay. I just hate to bother people. Hate. When I have a question, there's this irrational part of me that wants to stay very quiet and not upset anyone while they're

Odds & Ends

2006-08-14T10:52:00.001-07:00

Some random thoughts:Never name your JavaScript onload handler onload().Proposed: ICR as standard net acronym for "I couldn't resist."Example from Amazon internal mailing list:re: Recommendations for demolitionhttp://www.hells-angels.com/(sorry, ICR)My uncle Mike's website: ILResources.com - large body of information on independent living, disability, and senior care. He knows his stuff.

"Ajax"

2006-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

I put quotes around the term in feeble protest against the buzzword AJAX.[1] (Ajaxian Blog is as good a source as any for reading up on it.) Yes, it's an important concept. Perhaps it's the hype that bugs me. If I see one more link to JJG's original article, I'm going to barf.On the other hand, anything that encourages my employer to assign me more JavaScript work is a good thing ;-)Just as I do