It doesn’t get better

July 6, 2011 by 10 Comments

Anyone who tries to tell you that it gets better is either full of shit or is trying to sell you something. Or, both.

It doesn't get better

People all around me in my personal life are going through very difficult times emotionally (and some physically) right now, and I don’t know what to tell them. I’d love to tell them, with sincerity and compassion, that things will get better. But, I can’t. I know it would be nothing but a lie.

When a loved one dies, or life just seems so out of control that you want to ragequit, or bad shit just keeps happening over and over … does it ever really get better? You might get used to it. You might even learn to care less. You might just grow numb and cold to it. But, shit, what’s happened has happened. Nothing is going to magically reverse it. There’s no “undo” to life. It isn’t going to get better, ever. That “it gets better” rhetoric is just bullshit.

I don’t know what to say to all these people who are hurting. I know enough about myself to know that anything I say is just going to make things worse, so I try really hard to not say anything at all. But, I don’t want my silence to be construed as apathy, either.

I wish I could cheer you up. I wish I could ease your suffering. I wish I could end your pain. I wish I knew how to say the right thing at the right time to you. I wish things would actually get better.

Filed Under: Observations 10 Comments

You’d never watch Cheers if it were like this

June 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The other day, my friend Mike invited me out for some drinks at a local bar. It’s a nice bar with friendly staff and good food. I’m not much of a drinker; my vice is smoking. Still, I like spending time with friends, and bars tend to be a popular place to go and be social.

Now, this particular bar has no dance floor. It’s a bar on one side and a restaurant on the other. It’s not the kind of place that would come to mind when you think of places to go and dance. Just keep that in mind …

The night we went, the music was especially loud. Now, I love music and some ambient tunes in a social setting can be really pleasant. That wasn’t what we had that night, though. It was loud … so loud that I strained to hear anything Mike had to say and had to shout for him to hear me. By the time we’d left, my throat was sore and my voice was hoarse, and my ears were still buzzing once we got outside. This was ridiculous.

Here’s a pro-tip to anyone who runs a bar:

Unless there’s some titties dancing on the bar or around it, turn down the fucking music.

Remember that old TV show “Cheers”? Do you remember there being music playing in the background during the show? I sure as hell don’t. What they had were people drinking and socializing at a bar. Nobody would have watched that show if everyone were shouting over some high-energy music the whole episode.

I guess I just need to find a better bar. One that is actually run in a way that encourages people to enjoy alcohol while actually interacting with other people. Anyone have any recommendations for places within 15-20 miles of Butler, NJ? Or, are all bars like the one I was at, and I should just not bother going out for drinks any more?

Filed Under: Observations, Piss and moan (Rants) Leave a Comment

Delicious evils

June 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Holy crap. I swear these things are laced with some kind of addictive drug. I mean, they’re so tasty, it’s ridiculous.

Parmesan & Garlic Cheez-It

I just had to post this. That is all.

Filed Under: Food Leave a Comment

Artificial insomnia, this is not good

June 6, 2011 by 2 Comments

Recently, my witch doctor and I decided to change up my meds, removing Paxil from the blend and doubling up on the Wellbutrin. This has helped in some ways, but made things more difficult in others. This is to be expected, but I wonder how long it’s going to last–is this a temporary adjustment or a permanent result of the new blend?

Basically, the problem is that I’m not able to really focus during the normal daylight hours on getting work done like I used to. Before, I’d get up at 8 AM, sit down and start concentrating on things. Now, my head just feels fuzzy, well until noon, or even longer some days.

Now, what’s interesting is that around 10 PM until about 4 AM, I feel like I used to from 8 AM to 2 PM. Before, 3 PM was my low point and I’d often feel like passing out. Before, I used to get to bed around midnight and get up around 8 AM, and it worked really well. These days, I’ve been getting to bed around 4 AM, and fighting hard to wake up around 9 AM, feeling quite sleep deprived.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problems going to sleep at midnight like I used to, but that means only being awake for 2 hours of my “peak brain time” vs. the 6+ hours I had before. When I stay up late, even though my brain is in the sweet spot, I’m exhausted and struggle to stay awake.

It’s only been a few weeks since the change in the meds, so I’m going to see if things start to get back to normal. Obviously, if it’s still an issue when I have my next appointment, it’ll be a major focus of the visit, but for now, I’m trying to be patient. But, it has become extra-difficult to get serious work done, and now is totally not the time given the new gig I recently started. (I’ll write more about that, in another entry.)

Filed Under: Dossy, Dossy and more Dossy!, Observations 2 Comments

I hereby give myself permission to blog

June 3, 2011 by 4 Comments

My Twitter friend Brett tweeted something that I’ve been feeling and struggling with for months and months now. Basically, that there are times where I want to say something “out loud” to my social network, but I know I’ll need more than the 140 characters that will fit in a tweet, but it doesn’t feel large enough to blog about. I end up just “eating” the thought and it never escapes my head, but it’ll bother me for days, because of that need to get it out.

So, I’d like to try a little experiment. I’m giving myself “permission” to write those thoughts out as quick, short little blog entries. I have no idea what’ll happen, but I’ve sat on my hands long enough and it’s time for a change.

Filed Under: Blogging, Twitter 4 Comments

Transitioning to a new 4096-bit RSA GPG key

May 18, 2011 by Leave a Comment

@pleia2 reminded me that I ought to generate a new GPG key, given the recent advances in cryptography, etc. So, I just did. The new key’s fingerprint is:

pub   4096R/8D9740AA 2011-05-18
      Key fingerprint = C535 6302 1171 987D 738E  BFD8 2B1A B2E1 8D97 40AA

My old key’s fingerprint:

pub   1024D/EE812431 2004-08-27
      Key fingerprint = 0B12 F42F 2263 0444 B147  2C66 3587 2D37 EE81 2431

Read the full text of my GPG key transition statement (signed by my old and new keys).

Filed Under: Dossy, Dossy and more Dossy!, Geeking out Leave a Comment

White chocolate and red liquorice are just wrong

May 8, 2011 by 5 Comments
These are wrong

Did you know that there’s no such thing as “white chocolate” or “red liquorice”? No, really …

Maybe sure you’re thinking, “But I’ve had white chocolate, and I’ve had red liquorice. What do you mean there’s no such thing?” What I really mean is: these names are misnomers.

“White chocolate” isn’t really chocolate. “Red liquorice” contains no liquorice.

Of course, these foods probably got their names because it was easier to refer to them by these names than something more accurate. Or, perhaps it was a clever act of marketing. Still, I’m doing my part by spreading the word about these inaccuracies.

Know of any common misnomers, things that people call by a certain name, which is actually technically inaccurate? Let me know by leaving a comment. Thanks!

Filed Under: Believe it, or not, Food, Observations 5 Comments

Android USB tethering on Mac OS X

April 7, 2011 by 63 Comments

If you’ve got an Android-based phone, and want to do simple USB-based tethering on your Mac, you will find this guide useful. For reference, I performed this with the following equipment:

  • Samsung Captivate on at&t running custom Cognition 4.1.1 ROM.
  • MacOS X 10.6.6

The standard disclaimers apply here: follow these instructions at your own risk. This may void your warranty. Discontinue use if a rash develops.

Getting started: Preparing Android

All we need to do on Android is turn on “USB debugging” – do NOT fiddle with any of the “USB tethering” options or anything else. So, go into Settings > Applications > Development, and check the box next to “USB debugging.”

Android screenshots

After turning on “USB debugging” connect the device to your Mac using the USB cable.

Next, configure the Mac

After connecting the USB cable, your Mac should pop up a window saying that a device “SAMSUNG_Android” needs to be configured, like this:

Mac screenshot

This is a good sign. Click the “Network Preferences…” button, and find that device in your System Preferences’s “Network” section, which should look something like this:

Mac screenshot 1

The first thing to do is enter the values for this screen. Use the following settings:

Mac screenshot 2
  • Telephone Number: *99#
  • Account Name: wap@cingulargprs.com
  • Password: cingular1

Next, click on the “Advanced…” button towards the bottom right of the window. That should bring you to a screen that looks like this:

Mac screenshot 3

First, click on “Generic” and select “Samsung” for the vendor. Next, click on “Dialup” and select “GPRS (GSM/3G)” for the model. Enter in “wap.cingular” for the APN. Leave the CID as “1” which is the default. When everything is done, the window should now look like this:

Mac screenshot 4

Once that’s done, click “OK” which should bring you back to the previous screen. Next, click the “Apply” button to save all these settings.

Lets try connecting

At this point, you’re ready to try tethering! Go ahead and click on that “Connect” button. You should now see something like this:

Mac screenshot 5

If everything goes well, after 5-10 seconds, it should change to something that looks like this:

Mac screenshot 6

That’s it, now you’re tethered

Not terribly painful, no goofy software installation needed and hoops to jump through. And, here’s a speedtest for folks who are curious:

Speedtest

3.4 Mbit/s down, and 330 Kbit/s up on a 400ms ping isn’t fantastic, but it’s more than adequate for getting work done while out and about.

I hope you’ve found this guide useful and are happily tethered now. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to share them in the comments below!

Added on 2012-11-20: A reader named Art emailed me about HoRNDIS: a USB tethering driver for MacOS X. This may be useful for folks who are still interested in USB tethering on OSX.

Filed Under: Apple, Geeking out, Open Source 63 Comments

The Price is Right can lead to success

January 26, 2011 by 2 Comments

As a freelancer, one of your business tasks is to determine your pricing. It’s amazing how hard this actually turns out to be for new business owners, myself included, and how often we get this totally wrong.

When business is slow, or you’re starting up and trying to grow, my first thought was, “If I lower prices, I’ll get more business, and I’ll be able to make the money I need to survive.” This seemed pretty reasonable, at first glance. Sure, you might pick up a bunch of customers, which means working more hours (for less money!) and still not making enough. How did I go wrong?

The Price Is Right

Pricing yourself right isn’t necessarily figuring out the lowest price you need to offer to get the most customers. Matter of fact, as a whole we’re pretty awful at judging the value of things: so much so, that a whole game show was created around this fact that has run successfully since the 1950s!

Sometimes, pricing yourself too low will only cause your downward spiral into failure. The challenge is to identify just the right price that will allow your business to thrive, and that can mean setting it much higher than you thought was appropriate and higher than you’re probably comfortable with.

Juli Monroe at 1to1discovery.com tells a story about how setting the right rate by raising your prices could actually lead to the path of business success. (Full disclosure: I may have been the client she spoke to a few days ago. Maybe. :-) )

Do you own your own business, or do freelancing work? How did you set your rates? Did you struggle like I am in the beginning? How did you overcome this and get to the right rate — or, are you still struggling? Share your story with me in the comments!

Filed Under: Freelancing 2 Comments

Can 2011 be the year for personal grid computing?

January 24, 2011 by 1 Comment

I just posted a thought as a tweet, but the more I think about it, the more I hope it actually becomes a reality. Here it is:

http://twitter.com/dossy/status/29659038908157953

Sure, I guess this is pie-in-the-sky dreaming, but it makes total sense: combine fast storage with its own dedicated processor for off-loading of data-oriented tasks. 128GB or 256GB of solid-state disk (SSD) is becoming more and more affordable and the form-factor is tiny, rugged, and is energy-efficient. It already uses an industry-standard, high speed (3.0 Gbps) SATA interface. Modern, energy-efficient mobile CPUs like the 1 GHz Snapdragon are readily available.

How much additional engineering would it require to produce a SSD coupled with such a CPU and an API for pushing executables from a host machine down to the SSD which would run them? Even a design as simple as “create a partition on the SSD with a specific partition-type in a size of your choosing, and write binaries that will execute on the local CPU.” You’d write or use a small embedded OS that would run on the CPU, consume and produce data to the SSD volume, which could then be interacted with by a host machine attached to the device.

In a sense, I guess this is what some specialized data warehouse companies have already done, but this would be an economical, off-the-shelf product that individual consumers could use to accelerate data processing for their own personal needs. It would mark the change in the pendulum swing back from “the cloud” to “the personal computer.” It would, basically, usher in another new age of computing.

I’m sure most people who are still trying to wrap their heads around “the cloud” won’t understand why this would be such a dramatic shift, but I know there’s some visionaries out there who will read this and either totally understand, or already are working towards making this idea a reality. I’d like to be part of, and even perhaps have the opportunity to pioneer it. But, it’s not something I can do alone … maybe someone can introduce me to the right people to work with? Who knows … it’s a small world.

But for now, it’s back to work for me …

Filed Under: Geeking out 1 Comment
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