Archives for 2007

I need to learn to have productive arguments

April 10, 2007 by 3 Comments

Steve Goguen and I regularly discuss all sorts of things, and today he made a fantastic observation and gave me some incredibly sage advice:

I want to give you some advice which I think you’ll find when arguing with someone, especially if you want the argument to be productive. You need to tell the person what parts or assumptions you agree with otherwise you will create an atmosphere where the person will think you disagree on every possible point and they won’t want to continue the conversation. I know you, and I know we are in agreement with a lot of things, but if I didn’t know you there’s no way I would come to that conclusion.

He’s right; when I argue, I am incredibly adversarial and I know it hurts my ability to move the discussion forward.  I don’t know why I argue this way, but it’s what comes naturally.  I do need to start working on a strategy of discourse that frames the conversation in a win-win atmosphere.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have good friends, like Steve.

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Filed Under: Dossy, Dossy and more Dossy! 3 Comments

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April 9, 2007 by Leave a Comment

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Snow in April, 2007

April 5, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Last year, on April 5th, it snowed in Butler, NJ. Wouldn’t you know it, but this year, it snowed again–even though it isn’t sticking and by 9:26 AM, it seems to have stopped. Here’s a satellite image of the area with the radar overlay showing snow:

Snow in April, 2007

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April 2, 2007 by Leave a Comment

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MySQL 5.0 for Beginners training class (May 7-10, 2007) in Edison, NJ

March 28, 2007 by 2 Comments

MySQL LogoMySQL 5.0 for Beginners
May 7-10, 2007
Edison, NJ

Katina Lackey at MySQL sent me an email the other day letting me know of a newly scheduled MySQL training class scheduled for May 7-10 in Edison, NJ.  This is a beginners class in MySQL 5.0, instructor-led and hands-on, covering the fundamentals of MySQL and relational databases.  It’s a four-day course and costs $1,995–register before March 30th and you may be eligible for a 10% discount.

This session isn’t listed on the MySQL training schedule yet, so if you want to register, email Katina and let her know you heard about the class from my blog.

If you’re looking for a MySQL User Group that meets in Northern NJ, I’d also like to invite you to attend the Northern NJ MySQL Meetup, which meets on the first Wednesday of every month from 6:00-10:00 PM.  The meetup is free and we welcome everyone to join us–we only ask that you RSVP to let us know you’ll be coming.

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Filed Under: Geeking out 2 Comments

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March 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment

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Holy Grounds Cafe and Masa Sushi in Allendale, NJ

March 21, 2007 by 4 Comments

Last night, with the aid of babysitting, we were able to go out.  But, what to do?  My wife is happy to go out to see a movie, which is like two hours of brain-death for me.  So, since she left it up to me to arrange the evening, I decided to look for places with an open mic. night on Tuesdays.  One place, Holy Grounds Coffee Lounge in Allendale, NJ, caught my eye.  They advertised an open mic. night “every other Tuesday” … but didn’t mention which Tuesday started the cycle (sigh).

Holy Grounds Coffee Lounge in Allendale, NJ

Still, the place sounded promising even if there were no live entertainment this Tuesday.  We headed over to Allendale to check it out.  We found the place okay; it’s right in the middle of town on West Allendale Ave. by the “big clock” in the middle of the street.  We went in, asking about the food selection since we still needed to eat dinner.  No surprise, the deserts looked fantastic and the only real “food” were a bunch of premade panini sandwiches.  We decided to take our chances and left, walking up and down the street looking for places to eat.

We took a quick detour into a liquor store to check out their offerings and the helpful folks behind the counter mentioned the existance of, what they claimed, was an excellent sushi place in the adjacent building over.  We both love sushi and the only other alternatives seemed to be Italian restaurants, which are a dime a dozen in Northern Jersey.  But, I’m always wary when people claim that “this sushi place is excellent!” because, well, frankly, they usually aren’t.  Northern Jersey is plagued with a particular problem: most “sushi” places are Korean owned and operated, and I hate to say it, but your average Korean has no clue what good sushi is, but it’s usually quite passable to your average white person’s palate.  But, we needed to eat and, hey, who knows, right?

Masa Sushi & Grill in Allendale
(Click to enlarge.)

Hot damn.  The place is called Masa Sushi & Grill, also on West Allendale Ave., almost across the street from Holy Grounds.  Don’t let their pathetic looking website fool you: this place is the real deal.  In general, I have a short list for qualifying a good sushi place:

  • The sushi chefs speak Japanese.
  • There are a non-trivial number of Asian people who eat there.

Now, if you don’t know Japanese, it may be hard for you to know if the sushi chef’s are speaking Japanese.  They might be Koreans, speaking in Korean.  But, fortunately, I know enough Japanese to know what they’re speaking behind the counter.

If you go outside normal mealtimes, there may not be many people eating there, so the second item may not be of much use.  Since we were there at 7:00 PM, there were a bunch of people already there–and most of them were Japanese!  Even better, there were a few Japanese salariman there, reading their papers and eating their dinner.  I knew we were in for some good sushi.

Now, one thing I developed a taste for growing up is natto, a very signature Japanese food made from fermented soybeans.  I introduced my wife to it, who couldn’t stand it at first, but now she asks for it more than I do!  So, when she goes to a sushi place, even if it’s not on the menu–as was the case at Masa Sushi–she’ll ask for it.  Again, a good sign that this place was the real thing, they were quick to answer that, yes, they had natto!  We started our evening sharing a bowl of natto, together.

Another taste I developed growing up is for uni, or sea urchin.  Again, for many, this is an acquired taste, and ordering it in sushi places is often very hit or miss.  Given how expensive it is, it’s painful to risk paying the high prices for less than excellent uni.  Considering this place had been passing all my tests with flying colors, I looked at the uni in the sushi counter and it looked good.  I decided to order two pieces of uni and it was as good as I expected.

If you think you know good sushi when you eat it, perhaps you want to avoid this place.  It could ruin your perception of all those other “good” sushi places that you like to eat at, which may very likely pale in comparison to the high standards that Masa Sushi achieves.  By 8:00 PM on a Tuesday night, this place was packed full of Japanese people–salariman, families with young children and couples like us.  This place is no joke.

After our fantastic sushi dinner, we stumbled happily back across the street to Holy Grounds, where my wife ordered a pecan pie for dessert–one of her favorites–which she said was also excellent.  We relaxed while we enjoyed our drinks, as I flipped through a copy of a New International Version bible they have out.  In it, I came across this passage from Matthew 6:25-34 which is was so apropos:

Do Not Worry

25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Indeed, tomorrow will worry about itself, but for last night, we enjoyed ourselves and had a wonderful evening.

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Filed Under: Food 4 Comments

rec.arts.erotica + Scribd’s text-to-speech = profit!

March 19, 2007 by 2 Comments

I blogged about Scribd back in November 2006 during their beta launch, recognizing that the bright folks behind this startup were on the right track.  In February, they announced some new features and they’re all very cool, but one really jumped out at me:

  • Audio downloads. We have a very high quality text-to-speech converter and the play button icon below “download as” let’s you download the audio version as an mp3. This means you can use Scribd to convert a book to a format you can listen to on your iPod.

When they say “very high quality text-to-speech converter” they’re not kidding.  It’s not quite like having Majel Barrett-Roddenberry pretending to be the computer’s voice, but it’s closing the gap.

I’m ashamed to say I didn’t check out this feature when it was first announced!  I only caught it when the Scribd team shared some link love thanking bloggers, linking to my early blog entry.  I’m quite hypercritical and most attempts at computerized speech have been pretty disappointing (to me) over the last 10 years, but I let my curiousity get the better of me and I decided to give it a listen and I’m so glad I did.  You can either download the audio as MP3 or use the embedded Flash MP3 player widget, both in the right-hand navigation as you can see in the screenshot below:

Scribd screenshot, 2007-03-19
(Click for full size.)

I bet you’re asking “so, who cares?  Text-to-speech isn’t such a big deal.”  Oh, but lets not forget what really drives commercial progress on the Interwebs–porn.  As I titled this blog entry, “rec.arts.erotica + Scribd’s text-to-speech = profit!”  To prove the concept, I’ve taken an excerpt from a lovely little story by Sorissa titled “First Date Slut” and uploaded it to Scribd (which, hopefully doesn’t violate Scribd’s terms of service as it should be considered Fair Use and not infringe Sorissa’s copyright).  Here’s the snippet of text I uploaded:

“Actually, I was hoping we could try right now to turn my evening around. Are you willing?”

“Oh, Kevin, of course I’m willing.  The evening doesn’t have to end right now. We could just stay here and talk.”

“Mei,” he said, as he put his hand on my bare shoulder. “I think we should do a bit more than just talk.  I don’t think you dressed this way, just to have me kiss you on the cheek and go home, now did you?”

“No,” I breathed, completely taken by someone who was so honest and forthright, and not afraid to get right to the point, “I was hoping we’d get to know each other a bit better.”

After much hamster-wheel spinning, as Scribd’s conversion process takes a considerable amount of time at the moment, my lovely MP3 audio transcription was produced!  You can listen to it, all 36 seconds of it:

I know, you’re saying, “who cares?  This isn’t making me hot.”  But, how long do you think it’ll take someone to model a few popular porn star voices and texturize it so it converts the text in a way that is hot?  Would you pay, say, $0.99, to hear your favorite pornstar read your favorite erotic story?  Well, a mechanized version of, but who’s counting, right?

Like I said, keep an eye on these guys–they’re smart, talented and they’re moving fast.  Just check out the progression of their site header:

Scribd beta header, 2006-11-02  Scribd header, 2007-03-19
(Old -> new.)

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Filed Under: Geeking out 2 Comments

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March 19, 2007 by Leave a Comment

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How long before we see a smartphone with Flash support?

March 16, 2007 by 1 Comment

Jason Calacanis twitters:

JasonCalacanis Anyone know of phone that’s does flash/video/youtube? Blackberry doesn’t support right?

I don’t know for sure, but I’d look at OpenMoko.  According to their wiki, OpenMoko will be a smartphone platform based on Linux, leveraging the work that the TomTom folks have done for the Samsung 2410 application processor.

OpenMoko logo

According to Emmy Huang, Product Manager for the Flash Player at Adobe, who blogged back in May 2006, there will be a Flash Player 9 for Linux.  According to the developer blog, Mike Melanson announced that the final version is now available for Linux x86 back in January 2007.

It would make a lot of sense for the OpenMoko team and Adobe to work together to make sure there’s a Flash Player for OpenMoko-based smartphones–it’s a win-win for both.  Of course, the world has a long history of ignoring really smart strategic plays due to any number of stupid reasons, so naturally there’s no guarantees that it’ll happen, but the possibility and opportunity are certainly there.

According to this announcement, they were planning to sell the FIC Neo1973 handset (which would run OpenMoko) for US$350 in March 2007:

2007-03-11 Phase 1: Official Developer Launch
We will sell the Neo1973 direct from openmoko.com for US$350 plus shipping. Sales and orders will be worldwide. We are specifically targeting open source community developers.

Perhaps you can pull some strings or use your celebrity status to get your hands on a few developer units for us?  I doubt I could … I’m just a nobody.  :-)

Update 2007-03-19: Frank de Lange on the OpenMoko mailing list informs me that Adobe’s Flash Player EULA expressly prohibits use of the Flash Player on embedded/mobile devices, anyhow:

3. Restrictions.

3.1  Web Player Prohibited Devices. You may not Use any Web Player on any non-PC device or with any embedded or device version of any operating system. For the avoidance of doubt, and by example only, you may not use a Web Player on any (a) mobile devices, set top boxes (STB), handhelds, phones, web pads, tablets and Tablet PCs that are not running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, game consoles, TVs, DVD players, media centers (excluding Windows XP Media Center Edition and its successors), electronic billboards or other digital signage, internet appliances or other internet-connected devices, PDAs, medical devices, ATMs, telematic devices, gaming machines, home automation systems, kiosks, remote control devices, or any other consumer electronics device, (b) operator-based mobile, cable, satellite, or television systems or (c) other closed system devices.

I really wonder what the rationale was behind this restriction.  My guess is that Adobe wanted to strongarm mobile and embedded device manufacturers into paying to license the technology?  Who knows, but as more and more network computing capability is available on mobile/embedded devices, it’s a pity there’s such a restriction.

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Filed Under: Geeking out 1 Comment
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