MindlessCode.net

All Sourced: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151171&cid=12682560

Robin Miller has posted an article to NewForge (part of OSTG) entitled “Windows rapidly approaching desktop usability”–it’s a great read.

Hat tip: IO Error

[Written at 10:00 AM EDT]
Hi All! We made it across the country in 4 days (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday). We left Oregon at 2PM PDT on Tuesday and made it almost to the Utah border (we slept in a so-called “cow pasture”–BLM land with cows on it). On Wednesday we made it across Utah and Wyoming and stayed at a motel in Cheyenne. On Thursday, we went through Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois (hit Illinois at 12:03AM). Friday morning (aka, after 12AM), we made it through Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and then Massachusetts. Right now we’re driving down Mass Turnpike, with a ETA of 4 hours to Rhode Island.

* Oregon
Having never really been out of western Oregon (in a car, anyway), central and eastern Oregon were really very different that the western half (duh, I suppose). In central Oregon the land along the Columbia river was amazing. Sheer cliffs dropping down 10s of feet from beautiful sloping prairies on the N side of the Columbia, and amazing cliffs 100s of feet tall with tons of tali at the bottom of them. Water falls dropping 100’s of feet down these cliffs and crashing into rivers. Eastern Oregon was also beautiful with rolling hills, sage brush, and no trees for miles.

* Idaho
I have no idea–it was at night.

* Utah
The mountains we drove through on I-80 were amazing, with huge rock cuts on either side of the freeway. We also passed thousands of acres of “desert”–sage brush.

* Wyoming was very similar to Utah, with mountains and desert (even more that Utah). In eastern Wyoming we saw a “huge” wind-farm that was generating power for California. I’m sorry, but I think wind-farms are pretty, and I have no idea what people are talking about when they say that they “pollute the landscape”. If anything, it’s the oil field and refineries that do that. (Yes, we did pass a few refineries, but I didn’t get a picture for comparison.) We also met someone who collects dinosaur fossils–apparently Wyoming is full of the things. He gave us a fossilized dinosaur bone. Thanks!

* Nebraska
We sped through this state, only stopping for gas and lunch. The desert looks all the same from the road, but when you actually get out and walk around in it you realize that it’s actually very diverse with many different kinds of moss, flowers, and rocks (for those of us who are interested in moss, flowers, and rocks!). Trees are nowhere to be found, except tiny shrubs.

* Iowa
Ahh…this looks a little more like home! We started seeing green rolling hills, corn planted in terresces. many more trees (they’re also closer together!), as well as a few more wind mills. After we made it out of Iowa I went to sleep–I have no idea what Illinois or Indiana looked like.

* Ohio
Ahh, it’s the east–we have toll roads. It’s starting to look like the Eastern US here. I’m seeing lots of trees, water, and grass. We drove through Cleavland which is full of (old) factories made of solid brick (including the smoke stacks–made of round brick!). We stopped at Lake Michigan for lunch, which is huge and blue.

* New York
We avoided New York City like the plauge (hey, we’re from a small town!) and went through northern New York. It’s very nice up there with the interstate going through forests and farm land. Nice!

OK, so we’re here–it’s been a nice break-neck tour of the US, but I wouldn’t trade in anything for Philomath/Corvallis OR. We saw lots of spots that we would have liked to stop at (if we had time…). After the wedding, we are going to meander our way back across…fun!

…here are photos of The Taming of the Shrew:
http://www.wildgardenseed.com/Taj/spanish/photos/

The images are displayed through a PHP script that I wrote. If anyone else want’s it, just let me know and I’ll email it to you (taj at wildgardenseed dot com).

The play went really well (considering we had only 5.25 practices)–really, really well. I was happy :). Thank’s to everyone who helped.

The set’s (although you can’t see them all in the pictures) were awesome! They totaled something like 4.5 refrigerator boxes (see, that’s what happens when Kit and I are unsupervised). They wrapped around the whole front of the room (as Maria called it–”OmniMax”, although I have no idea what an OmniMax is :P).

Photo of (almost) everyone: From R to L:
Teresa H. (Servant), Abby H. (Lucentio), Maria H. (Bianca), Phillip H. (Hortensio), Kit M. (My brother–Petruchio), Joseph K. (Señor Minola), Monica H. (Katherina), Me (As a priest–I was also Gremio).

For those of you who don’t know the story, here’s a synopsis that I wrote:

The Taming of the Shrew, written by William Shakespeare in 1594.

Baptista Minola, a rich merchant who lives in Padua, Italy has two daughters, Bianca and Katherina. They both are old enough to marry. Bianca has many suitors, but Katherina doesn’t because she has the temperament of a shrew. There are rumors that Minola will give a lot of money to the man who will marry Katherina. Señor Minola also has a rule; no one will marry Bianca until Katherina is married.

Hortensio are Gremio are two of Bianca’s suitors. Hortensio is young, and Gremio is old and wealthy. Because of Minola’s rule, they make a deal with each other to find a suitor for Katherina. Hortensio runs into his friend Petruchio who is in desperate need of money and is willing to marry Katherina. Minola says that he will give preference to anyone who can find a good tutor for his daughters. Gremio finds Lucentio, a scholar who has come to study in Pauda. He introduces him to Minola and expects to be rewarded.

Petruchio marries Katherina and wears out her head-strong manner with his constant nagging, badgering, and criticism.

Much to the dismay of Gremio and Hortensio, the scoundrel scholar Lucentio wins the heart of Bianca. When Hortensio learns that Lucentio will marry Bianca, he rushes off to find a rich widow to marry.

At the banquet celebrating the marriages, Hortensio and Minola ask Petruchio how life is now that he is married to such a difficult wife. Petruchio says that he doesn’t think that Katherina is very difficult and says he can prove it by placing a bet as to which of their new wives will come when called. Both Bianca and Hortensio’s wife refuse to come, but Katherina comes right away, bringing Bianca with her and admonishes her to be patient and considerate with her husband.

As for the script, email me (I only have the English version).

We got back from the OOTFA Fiddle Contest yesterday night (at 11:45 PM).

Kit and I placed 2^nd in the twin (duet) division and then tied for 6^th in the Junior division. That is, we got exactly the same score (770) (there were 5 judges). That’s bizarre :).

There was also a 3-way tie for 8^th. In the twin, there was 1 tie that had to be broken, as well as 2 ties that were not broken. There was also a tie in the Open that had to be broken. I’ve never been to a contest with so many ties!

Also, our friend Alex Hargraves (age 13) placed 1^st in the Open! Congratulations Alex!

I did have fun. It’s so fun to hear all those good players–as well as jam with them.

This afternoon we’ll be leaving for Salem (OR) for the State Fiddle Contest. Today (Friday) we have the twin division, and then on Saturday my brother and I be playing on the Junior division. Fiddle Contest’s are fun!

Then, on Sunday we have our Spanish play (pictures may arrive…), then on Tuesday we take off across the country!

(Some) of my old blog posts may be coming soon to a website near you. I found that SupremeServer (our old host) still had our MySQL databases on their server (our hosting expired in August 2004!)…sooo I may be able import them into the this database. Cool!

Also, we need as many people as possible to test Autopackage 1.0.2 RC1. If you can lend a hand, please drop by #autopackage on irc.freenode.net and ask how to test RC1. Thanks!

Also, in need of reading material? Ask Google! Apparently, they recommend Solaris 9 Security…interesting.

I heard this on NPR yesterday, and Paul dug up avideo of it. Cool!

Also, we got the forums setup for Autopackage, drop by!

I setup Bad Behaviour on May 1st (11 days ago), and I haven’t had one trackback or comment spam yet! Yay, this rocks, thanks IO!

In other news, I’ve been redesigning the Wild Garden Seed website using just CSS. Internet Explorer sucks! It has the worst CSS support that I’ve seen :(.

Also, we’ve been working on our spanish play (The Taming of the Shrew). We (my brother and I) painted 2 sets. One was a street that was made out of 3.5 refrigerator boxes (using two sets from [Link would exist but blog posts lost :(]last year’s set, The Pied Piper). The whole set ended up spanning almost the whole width of the room!

Also, the Oregon Old Time Fiddler’s state contest is coming up on the 21^st. Cool! After that, we’ve got our spanish play (the 22^nd), and then we’re taking off across the country (driving) to a wedding of my cousin in Rhode Island. After the wedding, we’ll be making our way back to Oregon going through all sorts of neat places! I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post or reply to email, but I’ll try to post whenever we show up in a hotel with internet access!

Damon’s New Office