iBrasten

 I have received Mac OS X Tiger. So I’m saying so long from the world of Mac OS X Panther, and I will let you know when Tiger is installed. :D

Update:
So far all is well.  I’ve not been able to play with Spotlight yet as it requires a lot of time to initially index your system.  This is where the difference between a G4 and a G5 shows.  One guy I was talking to said it took his G5 about an hour and a half to index 500GBs of files…  My G4 notebook is predicting 12 hours to index 80GBs.

Oh well, in time.  Dashboard is as advertised.  Really slick.  Mail is importing my emails right now.

I know this guy, and his family. He’s a good guy. My thoughts are with him and his family.

Alrighty, I finally uploaded all the photos from my recent Portland trip. I mostly snapped shots around Old Town Chinatown and Riverplace. It was 72 degrees and beautiful both days…

.Mac Photo Albumn

Well, I attended the PJUG… Very fun!! Learned about JDO. I didn’t like the JDO idea, but after hearing about it…. I really DO like it now. Unfortunately, JDO isn’t nearly as popular as Hibernate. But on the other hand, JDO is a standard.

Anyway, some photos… * Photo Album Removed *

As we speak, Ryan and I are passing through Tacoma. Not the most attractive city in Washington. But I can’t very well drive AROUND Tacoma to get to Portland, so we’re grinning and bearing it. Tacoma just has a smell. Like walking through a trash dump on a hot and humid day while spraying cheap air freshener. :)

Anyway, more updates coming up!

Does anyone have any insight into what’s going on in Washington State right now?? Apparently, the recent changes to the anti-discrimination laws that would have added sexual orientation to the protected list was unable to pass the state senate.

I’m assuming that there’s some back story I’m completely unaware of—hence my appeal to any readers to make sense of the situation. For one thing, both the state house and state senate are controlled by liberal politicians getting their pockets filled with gay-rights dollars… so on a strict party-line vote, this should have passed.

But here’s what I don’t get… from reading the bill (skimming.. those suckers are LONG), it seems harmless enough. Sexual orientation should be added as a protected class with regards to employment. The bill specifically includes all sexual orientations, not just homosexual. So what’s the problem??? I mean, I’ll argue against gay marriage all day long, but workplace discrimination is an entirely different subject, and a bill like this from what I’ve seen should not be facing any serious opposition.

So, back to my original suspicion that there’s some back story I’m unaware of. Does anyone know what it is? It would be nice to know why something like this stalled. If enough people are actually AGAINST the bill, then I fear there is something in it I’m unaware of.

The Problem

For the last few years I’ve been extremely uncomfortable with the monolithic “Christian” system. I’ve begun to think about a lot of the beliefs held by Christianity, and have come to the conclusion that they may in fact be wrong. It’s not that the fundamentals of Christianity are wrong - I believe there IS a God and IS a Son of God that died for humanity - but everything else surrounding that becomes non-negotiable in today’s Christianity.

Take the following off-the-top-of-my-head examples: Inerrancy of scripture; the canonization of each writing (gospels, pauline writings, etc); historical accuracy of biblical stories (the flood, creation…). Also, the unspoken belief that if something isn’t in the scriptures, it likely did not happen, and most the time it’s blasphemous to assert that it did. For example, the “Da Vinci Code”-esque belief that Jesus may have married Mary Magdalene and had children.

gasp

My frustrations with “the church” started when I realized that these are legitimate topics of debate. How DO we know Noah’s Flood actually happened?? How DO we know if Jesus was in fact married?? Well, we’re not allowed to find answers to those questions inside the church because we’re not really allowed to ASK the questions.

Here’s a question then: How is it that the church expects anyone to follow them while they continue to be so intellectually dishonest?

... to be continued …

sonofaBITCH.

It has not been a good month for Apple + Java folks.

First came word that the 10.3.9 update causes Java to break on about 20% of the machines it’s installed on. There’s an easy fix, but there was a day or so of panic for a lot of people. Either way, it was a bad mess up that made people wonder how such a problem made it through Apple’s QA.

Second, and this I just found out last night, we’re learning that Mac OS X Tiger will NOT be shipping with Java 5. Considering the Windows/Linux/Solaris implementations are some 3 months old or so, us Apple + Java fans were REALLY counting on Java 5 in OS X Tiger. I guess we’ll just continue to wait.

I did attend the Seattle Java Users Group last night. It was pretty fun. The topic was Ajax, specifically JSON-RPC-Java, which essentially gives you browser-side JavaScript stubs for server-side Java objects that can be called with remote calls. Pretty impressive in theory actually. In implementation however, I’m not so sure it’s that impressive.

I do always go away from those things wishing I’d been more social. I talked to a couple people, but I mostly slipped in and slipped out. I’m a quiet person in new situations. It was fun though to be in a room full of people who do exactly what I do, talking about some situations we all face, etc. I strongly recommend anyone in programming thing about attending users groups. They are in almost every city for almost every programming language. I’ll be attending Portland’s JUG next week. Vancouver, B.C.’s in happening tomorrow, but I can’t afford to take that much time off work.

It’s funny to me that CNet and ZDNet and Slashdot and all the other little tech news sites out there are running endless reviews and comparisons of Mac OS X 10.4 to Microsoft’s Longhorn. The general feeling seems to be Longhorn and Tiger will be fairly equally matched as far as features go. The most prominent new feature of both operating systems is going to be their new search capabilities. Both sound nearly identical. Mac OS X is calling their technology “Spotlight”... Microsoft is calling there’s “MSN Desktop Search.” But they both do almost exactly the same thing. Apart from that, each are making improvements in other areas. So on first blush, it would seem natural to begin comparing these two operating systems as the next round of operating system wars begin.

Except for one minor technicality… Longhorn is expected late 2006 - maybe - while Mac OS X 10.4 should be on my doorstep in 9 days. Okay, so Apple delivered there OS first… so what? Well, here’s where it gets fun. Longhorn and Tiger will likely not even be contemporaries. Apple is on an 18-month development cycle, which means the Apple should be releasing another version of Mac OS X right around September 2006, around the same time as Longhorn.

Thus, comparing Mac OS X Tiger to Longhorn is completely fallacious. That would be like comparing Mac OS X 10.3 to Windows 98. Windows users wouldn’t let you get away with that. So us Mac users shouldn’t let you get away with comparing Mac OS X 10.4 to Longhorn.

I’ve posted some photos from the last few days… Notably, it was Jessica’s birthday… there’s a few more good pics of Hobbes, a couple of me playing with Hobbes.. A few of my family, including one that my mother would kill me for posting. :) (Don’t make weird faces in front of a camera if you don’t want the picture posted for the world to see. :) )

.Mac Album – April 20th

Hang in there with me, I’ve got a few things to ramble about this morning.

Washington State Politics I was listening to NPR this morning as I always do, and they were talking about two topics related to Washington State. Apparently the republicans are planning on avoiding a primary fight by deciding amongst themselves who can best compete against Sen. Maria Cantwell (D). This is an interesting point for me because I voted FOR Cantwell originally. She has not turned out to be what I expected, so I have no problems voting against her this time. Especially since it’s looking like Dino Rossi may end up being her competitor. As most of you likely know, Dino Rossi was the Republican candidate - and winner - of the Washington State gubernatorial race, until the Democrats “found” just enough votes in King County to win the 2nd, and final, recount by 100+- votes.

The second topic concerning Washington State is what to do with our budget. Apparently the Democrats was to increase our state budget by 12% this year, while Republicans want to increase it 7%. The Republicans admit they would have to cut some programs next year to stay under budget, but they point out that economic growth is much more in line with their budget. So what do the Democrats was all the extra money for?? The Democratic representative on the show admitted that the state-sponsored health care initiative is costing the state much more than originally anticipated and is expected to grow substantially.

gasp.. You mean, government sponsored health-care is expensive??? You mean, our state is having a hard time keeping up with the costs??? Surprise of all surprises… is it possible and perhaps government-sponsored health insurance really DOESN’T work? It’s in admissions like that that I wish Democrats would realize that maybe, just maybe, Republicans aren’t uncaring, heartless greedy corporate overlords, and maybe they say no to some ideas because the idea just isn’t a good one.

My Work Place Lightening up a little, I thought you’d all enjoy a picture of my office.

As you can see, I have three computers sitting at my desk, and a fourth one not in the picture. Which is silly because I only regularly use two, and only really NEED one. The notebook in the middle is my beloved PowerBook running Mac OS X Panther, which I’m on right now. The computer to the right is my super-powerful workstation where I do most of my development running Red Hat 9 with Ximian Desktop 2 (Linux). The computer to the left is my old notebook, now running Fedora Core 3 (Linux). The machine not in this picture is an old Sun Ultra running Solaris 9 with Java Desktop System.

For those familiar with *nix, I use the Linux workstation for my development but I access it with remote X sessions on my PowerBook. So I get the power of the workstation but get to work in the lick-able Mac OS X environment. Makes life easier.

Speaking of, the recent 10.3.9 update appears to have fixed the irritating flaw where SSH would take 30 seconds to connect from my PowerBook. It’s now instantaneous. Thanks Apple!

Seattle Mariners What happens when you have 4 good teams in the same division? They kick the crap out of each other and get nowhere. To that end, the Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and Oakland Athletics are all tied for first place at 6-6, with the Texas Rangers down half a game at 6-7. This will be a fun division.

That said, what have we seen from the Mariners thus far? Well, let me start with what concerns me. Our $100 million dollar investments aren’t hitting well. Last I checked both Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson are hitting below .250. Also, pitching injuries have knocked out what we hoped would be a premiere starter (Bobby Madristch). The GOOD news in all of that is, we’ve still managed to play .500 ball. I think as long as our big boys come around, we’ll be able to compete in this division.

Anyway, this post has gotten to be long enough, so I’ll leave it there.

Here’s a picture I took this morning of Hobbes:

Click to Enlarge

I’m not really OBSESSED with Portland, it’s just a city. But I happen to really like it, and when you WANT to be somewhere and/or do something and you CAN’T at the moment, that thing or place feels a lot more important than it is. :)

That said, I found the picture below off of Portland’s Parks and Recreation website. It was taken April 8th.

This is a block that they’ve decided to turn into a park. One thing that’s funny about that is that 3 blocks south they have a whole block already that’s a fountain/pond/square/park. I spent several hours at Jamison Square sitting on the fountain reading a few months ago… it was very peaceful! This is Jamison Square:

Anyway, back to the top picture, that’s going to be a park, and of course you can see in the background the bridge. I don’t know what that’s called, but it’s one of several bridges that Portland is proud of.

The building just to the right and behind all of that construction is The Pinnacle. Obviously named to inspire awe into all who hear it. :) Anyway, I really like that building, the streetcar stops right there next to it… it’s in the Pearl… So, if I get a job in Portland, expect that I’ll be casing that place for an available condo. I could only afford a studio design in the Pearl… Pinnacle studios are starting at $240,000. Even that’s moderately cheap for Pearl… getting into Edge Lofts, for example, will cost you $300,000ish for a studio to start.

Anyway, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, I will now announce my next trip to Portland. drumroll April 26-27th! There’s a Java Users Group down there that looks informative, so I thought I’d go. Besides, social networking is a critical factor in a development career, and I want to start doing more of that.

Because 80% of my invested cash is consolidated in Apple stock at the moment, these quarterly earnings reports are a huge deal to me, either good or bad. Thankfully, they’ve been good for the last year or so. I’m listening to the conference call and will update you with more specifics as I hear them.

2:03pm:

Apple posted a net profit of $290 million, a 500% increase from the same quarter a year ago (up from $46m).

Gross revenue was up 70% to $3.24 billion from the year-ago quarter. 1,070,000 Macintosh units were shipped, a 43% increase from the year-ago quarter. 5,311,000 iPods shipped (558% increase from the year-ago quarter, also up from the 4,500,000 iPods shipped during the HOLIDAY quarter.)

Gross margin was up a couple points to 29.8%.

Highest Q2 gross and net revenue in Apple’s history.

Macintosh Business: 608,000 total desktops 462,000 portables

Music Business: 43% share of the Flash-based MP3 player market for February (no March numbers available). Continued 70% iTunes Music Store market share

Retail Store: 13,000,000 visitors to Apple Stores in Q2. 125 stores at the end of FY05.

Japan and Europe revenues up over 70%.

$7.057 in cash holdings, up over $600 million.

Next quarter estimates: $3.25 billion.

iPod supply-demand almost at equal levels by end of quarter. iLife ‘05, iWork ‘05 very successful.

Total Music Player market share (Hard drive and flash) increased from 64% to 70%. Hard Drive player market share retreated slightly from 92% to 90% as the flash-based Shuffle increased.

Wooo hooo, wo ho hoooo!

Mac OS X Tiger has been officially announced! The arrival date will be my BIRTHDAY also! Happy Birthday to me! I’ve got my copy pre-ordered. :D

Every now and then I run through a Myers-Briggs test just to see if I’ve changed at all. And while I think the prevalence of various personality traits have probably shifted here and there over the years, it’s obviously not been enough to change my Myers-Briggs personality code. I am the same personality type today as I was when I first took the test in 1995. An INTP. It’s a little weird to be given a 4 letter code and a rundown of what you’re like and how you feel, and to have it be extremely accurate. But then again, I basically TELL them what my personality is by answering the questions, so I guess it’s not that weird.

Nevertheless, I figured I’d copy my personality results here for all to see.

INTP

As an INTP, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you deal with things rationally and logically. Your secondary mode is external, where you take things in primarily via your intuition.

INTPs live in the world of theoretical possibilities. They see everything in terms of how it could be improved, or what it could be turned into. They live primarily inside their own minds, having the ability to analyze difficult problems, identify patterns, and come up with logical explanations. They seek clarity in everything, and are therefore driven to build knowledge. They are the “absent-minded professors”, who highly value intelligence and the ability to apply logic to theories to find solutions. They typically are so strongly driven to turn problems into logical explanations, that they live much of their lives within their own heads, and may not place as much importance or value on the external world. Their natural drive to turn theories into concrete understanding may turn into a feeling of personal responsibility to solve theoretical problems, and help society move towards a higher understanding.

INTPs value knowledge above all else. Their minds are constantly working to generate new theories, or to prove or disprove existing theories. They approach problems and theories with enthusiasm and skepticism, ignoring existing rules and opinions and defining their own approach to the resolution. They seek patterns and logical explanations for anything that interests them. They’re usually extremely bright, and able to be objectively critical in their analysis. They love new ideas, and become very excited over abstractions and theories. They love to discuss these concepts with others. They may seem “dreamy” and distant to others, because they spend a lot of time inside their minds musing over theories. They hate to work on routine things – they would much prefer to build complex theoretical solutions, and leave the implementation of the system to others. They are intensely interested in theory, and will put forth tremendous amounts of time and energy into finding a solution to a problem with has piqued their interest.

INTPs do not like to lead or control people. They’re very tolerant and flexible in most situations, unless one of their firmly held beliefs has been violated or challenged, in which case they may take a very rigid stance. The INTP is likely to be very shy when it comes to meeting new people. On the other hand, the INTP is very self-confident and gregarious around people they know well, or when discussing theories which they fully understand.

The INTP has no understanding or value for decisions made on the basis of personal subjectivity or feelings. They strive constantly to achieve logical conclusions to problems, and don’t understand the importance or relevance of applying subjective emotional considerations to decisions. For this reason, INTPs are usually not in-tune with how people are feeling, and are not naturally well-equiped to meet the emotional needs of others.

For the INTP, it is extremely important that ideas and facts are expressed correctly and succinctly. They are likely to express themselves in what they believe to be absolute truths. Sometimes, their well thought-out understanding of an idea is not easily understandable by others, but the INTP is not naturally likely to tailor the truth so as to explain it in an understandable way to others. The INTP may be prone to abandoning a project once they have figured it out, moving on to the next thing. It’s important that the INTP place importance on expressing their developed theories in understandable ways. In the end, an amazing discovery means nothing if you are the only person who understands it.

The INTP is usually very independent, unconventional, and original. They are not likely to place much value on traditional goals such as popularity and security. They usually have complex characters, and may tend to be restless and temperamental. They are strongly ingenious, and have unconventional thought patterns which allows them to analyze ideas in new ways. Consequently, a lot of scientific breakthroughs in the world have been made by the INTP.

The INTP is at his best when he can work on his theories independently. When given an environment which supports his creative genius and possible eccentricity, the INTP can accomplish truly remarkable things. These are the pioneers of new thoughts in our society.

I could afford a new car.

I could afford a very nice new car, if I really wanted. And lately I’ve been feeling like it’s time. I’m still driving around my college car - or my right-after-college car - and it’s getting a little old. I own a 1991 Honda Prelude. I like straight lines on cars. I don’t like bubbly cars. Most cars today are bubbly or curvy. Except for some of the classic high-end cars, like BMWs. Which is probably why I want a BMW so bad. And again, if I really wanted, I could get one. But here’s the problem… days like today the sun comes out, I give my car a wash and step back and think, damn… that car looks GOOD.

Here’s the other catch: I don’t have any car payments. My insurance is super-low with the Prelude. You’re talking about adding $300+ a month to pick up a new vehicle (depending on vehicle price, purchase vs. lease, etc). Is it worth THAT much to me? I dunno. It seems like every couple months I go through this debate with myself and I never end up getting a new vehicle.

I don’t even know why I’m talking about this now, except that I looked out the window of my office here and saw my car glistening in the sun and realized I don’t HATE my car after all.

Mockumentary, (also, fictional documentary): The mockumentary is presented as if it were a documentary, though it is not factual.

Examples:
    The Office
    The Blair Witch Project
    Best in Show
    Fahrenheit 9/11

Interesting situation going on right now in Congress. Apparently they’re debating whether or not to force Apple to open up it’s DRM so they interoperate with others.

BAD. IDEA.

Even Napster’s CTO testified at the hearing that these types of decisions should be dictated by the market and not government intervention. I respect his integrity. It would have been very easy for him to go in and whine about Apple beating them, but he didn’t. He told it how it is.

I’m not necessarily defending Apple’s practice of restricting the iTunes-iPod platform, merely stating the government has no right getting involved at this point.

There are really three reasons why I desire to drink coffee…

First, the cravings.  That’s the most immediate reason when you’ve been drinking coffee for a while.  

Second, the taste.  They’re just SOOOO good.  Nothing beats a perfectly made espresso drink in the morning, or afternoon… or evening…  But even this I’m able to get over.  There are a lot of things that are really good that I successfully avoid for health reasons.  I can eat a whole can of almond rocha if I ever let myself buy them.  But I don’t.  Because it’s not good for me.  But both those reasons have begun to pale in comparison to reason #3…

The espresso scene is COOL.

I’m not talking Starbucks or Tullys.  They stopped being cool a while ago.  But the whole independent coffee shop scene, using my sexy PowerBook while drinking a mocha in a ‘for-here’ mug… grinning at all the other laptop toting, ceramic-mug drinking, independent coffee shop lovers that walk in the door.  It’s all so… elitist.   And fun.  And I love it.

Off-Topic

That’s one thing I like about Portland.  See, Seattle hasn’t yet figured out that Starbucks isn’t cool anymore.  Everyone here still thinks it is.  Portland’s figured it out.  In my 6-7 trips down there in the last several months, I can think of exactly 2 Starbucks that I’ve seen.  One very apologetically stuffed into a spot the size of my bedroom on the corner of a building; the other one being the only real prominent Starbucks in Portland that I know about, occupying a free-standing structure on the Pioneer Courthouse Square.

On the other hand, every block you have two or three independent or minor chain coffee shops.  The Coffee People, Pete’s Coffee, Portland Coffee House… a bunch of others that I can’t even remember the name to.  Most have good coffee, some don’t.  But there are as many of these little shops in Portland as there are Starbucks in Seattle.

Correction: Misspelling: The correct spelling is Peet’s Coffee.

Because I know so many of you are watching that countdown at the top of my blog tongue-in-cheek, I thought I’d mention that rumors are now placing significant Tiger-related events on the 17th-18th.  It’s unknown if that’s an anouncement date or release date, but it’s still expected to be shipping before the end of the month.

I’m on my 5th day of no coffee.

Significant.

As someone who’s downed an average of 1.3 coffees a day since I was 16, going 5 days without is pretty difficult.   It should be noted that my intention is not to never have a coffee again, but mostly  I’m hoping to go about a month or so without one to get myself off the habit.  This one-a-day and sometimes two-a-day thing can NOT be good for me.  I’m also motivated by the fact that I’d like to lose a few pounds, and downing a 600 calorie drink every morning is not a productive way of losing weight.

But, it has not been fun.  Today is the first day since last week that I haven’t woken up with a headache.  I’ve been trying to help the process by drinking a ton of water.  I don’t know if that’ll actually help or not, but it’s a GOOD habit to get into either way.

Anyway, wish me luck. 25 more days to go, but I think I’m over the largest hurdle. :)

I love the way the British government works in a lot of ways. I recommend watching C-SPAN one night when the House of Commons is on. Could you imagine if the President of the United States actually had to debate with opposing political leaders every time the congress was in session? I don’t know that that’s exactly how it works in the UK either, but every time I turn on the House of Commons broadcast, there’s Tony Blair, going nose-to-nose with his main rival.

Tony Blair is a topic of some interest to me. For one thing, I think he’s a great leader, as far as personal characteristics go. He seems extremely honest, transparent, strong, and smart. Unfortunately in America, our political system allows for the perception of stupid, weak, and dishonest leaders. Not to say they ARE, but they come off looking that way. Tony Blair also supports the Iraq War, which was the right thing to do. He had to know that doing so would come with a high political cost, and if recent polls bear out, it will have costed him and his Labour Party greatly. But he did it anyway. Because it was the right thing to do.

On the other hand, the vast majority of his policies I strongly disagree with. His party is taxing the public to death, the national healthcare system set up by his governments is bleeding the national treasury dry and is a disaster—as almost all national healthcare systems are.

I say all that because elections are coming up here soon, and for the first time in a lost time, the opposition Conservative party has a serious chance at winning a large amount of seats. It’s way to early to say that Tony Blair’s position is in jeopardy, as it’s probably not. But he does face the possibility of losing a LOT of seats in the house to conservative candidates. And I don’t know how to feel about that. I LIKE Mr. Blair, and I like his foreign policy decisions. But his policies, which don’t directly affect me anyway, are horrible. So, I don’t know who to root for.

On the other hand, Australia’s conservative Prime Minister John Howard is kicking ass down there, Australia’s economy is flying, and the people love him. I think he’s my favorite foreign world leader at the moment.

Some guy from Portland posted a few pictures he took of the city on Flickr.com. He’s quite good, and captures a lot of great photos of the city. Here are a few:

The last two pictures are pretty much dead center of the Pearl District, which is the area I’d love to live in. Anyway, check out his other pictures.

As you all know, Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla, died April 2nd.

In all honesty, I’m too young to fully appreciate the majority of his papacy.  But as I’ve been watching and reading over the last week I’ve managed to pick up a good deal of information about the man, and as anyone who’s watched him throughout the years probably knows, he was a good man.

Of course, as with anyone who holds a position of power, there are those who disagree with specific beliefs of his.  I consider myself among them.  But the Pope was a man who loved people, loved the church, loved Christ.  And he demonstrated that love time and time again in service to Roman Catholics, and indeed to all men of good will as he would say, through his selfless serving and gracious heart.

From what I’ve read, the Pope has been ready to live with God for a long time, and while the world will mourn OUR loss, I - for one - am excited for his gain.

Well lived, Karol Wojtyla… well lived.