life – Page 66 – Cubey Terra

August 5, 2003

Back, demon, from whence you came

How do you know if the company that you work for is making evil software? Here’s the on-screen help that I got for the command-line parameters:

	-D       Become a daemon (default)

	-i       Run interactive (not a daemon)

Well at least they give you the option of not becoming a demon.

For clarity, I like to add diagrams to the guides that I write. Here’s my concept for this one:

standalone daemon

Hold on. The command-line help says “daemon”, not “demon”. Never mind, then.

A “daemon” is a server process, apparently. I guess this means that my company doesn’t necessarily serve the powers of evil after all. That’s a relief, because I kind of like it here.

August 4, 2003

Fry Beans

Sabine of Sensei and Sensibility fame, kindly supplied me with a new item for Project Snack.

The green label said, “FRY BEANS”, and inside were deep-fried, salted peanuts. Flavourful, salty, and greasy, is how I would describe them… and how I ate them too.

'Fry Beans' deep-fried peanuts

And there’s an extra surprise in the pack.

Packet of silica gel

Unfortunately, it turned out to be silica gel.

August 3, 2003

Oog… brain hurts

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I have a vast respect for professional novelists. My respect is even vaster (and crunchier!) now.

A concerted effort both yesterday morning and today has found me only a few thousand words richer. I’ve waded through some painfully tedious exposition that I know I’ll have to rewrite or remove later, and now our hero has spent some quality time berating a computer. Maybe that last part is simply me projecting my frustrations into the story.

Anyway, looking at the nuts-and-bolts side of things, my story’s word count has climbed to a modest 7,400 words. And now I’m pooped. Time to go outside and play.

August 2, 2003

William Shatner has a blog

Ee i ee i oh! (As I typed the the title for this entry, it occurred to me that it could be sung to the tune of “Old MacDonald”.)

Yes, it’s true. William Shatner is blogging at www.williamshatner.com. I only wish he’d start his entries with “Captain’s blog, stardate…”, and continue on to talk about blobby alien things attacking the ship and so on.

If the captain’s bloggings aren’t enough to entice you to his website, then I should mention that you can also purchase Shatner-related merchandise, like Bill “bobbleheads” or DVDs of various things that you’ve never heard of. There are also links to other Shatner-related sites, including a quite prominent link to BringBackKirk.com.

August 2, 2003

Docs

You know I’m bored when I start taking pictures of my boots.