Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Book review, Seeker

Seeker by Jack McDevitt

I would like to say that this was a good book but it in reality it was not. I did make it all the way though but I had to look at the start of the next chapter a few times to keep interest because I did not know if the book was going to go anywhere.

Warning Spooler…. Kind of.

The book has a good premise. One I like, looking for a lost colony of human settlers that have been gone for 6000 years. The main character tells the story in 1st person. Witch I really don’t think I like. Kind of feel like I am reading an over written diary. But the still the writing was good enough to keep me interested. Maybe kept me in the book as, like I said, seemed to go no where quite often. Finding the colony seemed take a lot more steps then needed and a few of the things they did to try to find it were dead ends. And were as doing something like this for real might have quite a few dead ends, one of two in a book is enough.

The teller talked and visited an alien race but never really explored them. There was a couple attempts on there lives, but you knew were they were coming, and who did it. The threat to there lives was just something to have there and not really needed. And you never really felt like they were in any danger. There was a lot of things thrown in to try to keep it from feeling like a strait point A to B story. But yet it still felt that way.

Also at the end of the book they found an interesting civilization. One that was on a world lock in to title lock so did not have night. They lived in a zone around dominator of the part that was the most habitable but they live in just early evening all the time. They did not have night or for that fact day. So they did not brake up time like most people did. They never saw the stars so they did not have a drive to get off the world.

I though that was interesting. It seems like humanity has a need to get to the stars, get off world. But would we have that if we never say the stars? The did know about stars, people that went to the dark, cold side of the plait for research and the like. But is was not in the mass mind. Would you even think about other races living around other stars. But this was never really explored. Or anything else that a race of humans would be like if they were separated form humanity for 6000 years.

Of course they only had legends of were they came from and religions that had sprung up. But no real knowledge of were they came from. At 1st I thought this unlikely that 6000 years would be enough to have the forget that they were once a colony of a race from a deferent world. But then I remember there have been more than one large civilizations that have been on the planet of the last 6000 years that have come, and gone with little more then a few coins and legions to let us know they were there. So maybe. Still non of the was really explored.

End then end. The book just ended. Tied up loss ends all in the last chapter that gave few paragraphs to the few outstanding questions. Nice, but it could have been done better. A lot better.

In the end. I say the righting and concept of the book saved it. But the story was not that deep or good.

Read it if you have time. Good for a plain or bus to hold you over.

Thewildword~d

Monday, February 26, 2007

Kids, The groups. Pods and Disks on the bus.

I have notest a sigh of the times. A new version of the have and have not’s on the bus in the morning. There are groups of teens that are that I think of as the Pods. They all have nice close that have been worked on the look like they are trash. Talk ‘shit’, curse every 3rd word and talk about how bad their lives are in Kirkland WA, all the fights they get into(despite the lack of limping and bruises.), how F@c# they get into each weekend. And most of the time they smoke. And they all have ‘iPods’.
The other group is quieter for the most part. Not so tight together and as there cloths, for the most part are clean, it is not so hard to tell that there stuff is mostly used. They don’t seem to mind though, they seem to take plusher in the fact they are creative in what they do with what they have. I don’t see most of them smoking and they all have ‘CD players’.
On the bus you can tell who are the have and the have not’s. iPods Vs Disks. I like the Disk kids a lot more. They just don’t seem to have the attitude. The iPod kids never even seem to lesion to their music. More interested in talking about how bad their lives in the same breath as talking about the new stuff they got this weekend. And how much the need a smoke. I can’t tell you how much these kids tick me off. Maybe I am just getting old. But my life was never as rough as they pretend there’s is. Sure I was in Hell as a teen. But the way this kids talk you feel like you should call social servers for them.
There is a 3rd group. The Goth kids. I don’t see them with the music much. But you can always guarantee they will have coffee on them. Everyone here has coffee on them. But for a Goth it is a requirement. Again most are smokers. But not as much as the Pods.
What I find odd. I don’t see any tech kids, computer nerd types on the bus. Maybe there parents drive them.
Thewildword~d

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

2012

There has been a lot about the year 2012 and that the Mayans calendar ends in it. (sometime in October I think) For along time I have found this interesting. It always seemed odd to me that people that went though so much trouble to create such a grate calendar that went for so long after they did would end on a canteen date. Sure the calendar had to end some time. And it could be that is just what they decided to end for some reason. But they all end on that date. You would think if there was more then one of them and the end date did not matter. They would all end at deferent dates.

But lately I have learned that in 2012 is the same time that the earth passes though the galactic center. Moving from one side to the other. It seems that the earth dose this every so often. Lawrence Joseph says that he finds evidenced that every time this happens there has been big earth changes. That there is huge gravity waves that compress our sole system and brings the down fall of civilizations. And that is what the Mayans were talking about. Not the end of the world but the end of ‘this’ time and ‘this’ way. The Mayans were vary good at understanding the stars and our place in them.

Anyway. That said. I don’t now about the down fall of civilizations and all, even though I believe that there most likely has been advanced civilization of man on the this plaint before that have fallen I am not sure if this will be the fall of ours. I get the belief of advanced civilization of ‘us’ from the fact that we have been around for about 100 thousand years. Not a lot to some. But that is about 92 thousand years that we have no record of. And for all this time we have had the same brain power that we have now. Not a bigger brain, not a smaller. The same brain. But yet we only come up with writing in the last 8 thousand years.

I think it more likely that humans lived in smaller pockets some for them got real advanced but something come along and removed them. After all it if we just were gone tomorrow it would take 1k for most things that were not plastic and glass to be gone. 50k for most plastic and glass. If there were a few pocket of really smart groups that advanced to almost our level or even to with in 50 years of us. And they got destroyed 50k ago or even 20k it would be hard for us to tell. They would not even be legends. Hell you can find towns all over KS, MS, OK and AR that are just foundations of buildings in the woods. No one knows anything about them or how lived there. If less than 100 years from now there will be nothing of them.

Anyway that aside. I was thinking what if going though the galactic plain did not bring us down but moved us into a new reign in the galaxy. What if of the other side allows us to connect to quantum reality more. Maybe all the legends of magic and supernatural powers come from a time when we were more in touch with magic and the like. Maybe the other side will make Quantum Magic opens up to us? Or something like that. I know. Vary Shadorun. Still.

Well that is all I am going to ramble about tonight.
Thewildword ~d

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Books of the Dead.

I was lessening to Coast 2 Coast today like I almost always do. I just love that show. ET’s, Ghost, Big Foot, “Real” Scientist, Quantum Space and time talk. Government cover-ups and the end of time (2012 just so you know!) is the best for work.

Today they were talked about the Egyptian and Tibet books of the dead. And I got to thinking. Why don’t I have a book of the dead. I could really use one!
(~d book of the dead)
Now that I think about it I could come up with my own end of world Revelations type book to. I tell you I would have more the 4 hours men of ~d’s apocalypse.

Thewildword~d

.Net C#

Well most of this Post will be about work and the like. But not bad stuff. I really have been enjoying in the last couple weeks. I have been doing lots and lots of .NET. front end and back in of it. And C#.

I have been working a lot with the .NET controls and like most people that have done any front end work I get frustrated at how you can’t get hold of the id’s because .NET changes them. Adds stuff to them. What this has done is made me really get my JS down. Walking the DOM and the like to find the element I want. Ether though looking at Child Nodes or Siblings. My JS and CSS has really jumped forward. And I have really cemented myself as the AJAX person of the company.

At the same time I am really getting .NET down. Master pages and custom controls are now common place for me. C# as a backend language is powerful and smooth. It works with .NET so well. Allowing you to control and change the front side controls and content with ease.

I must admit for the 1st time I feel like a real programmer. I have been doing web work broth front end and middle tear for a long time. But always in JS or ASP on the back end. Now I am really getting in to building web components both server objects and controls. Working with SQL and stored procedures. And My knowledge of JS and AJAX is really helping in building sites in the web 2.0 world.

There is still lots to learn. But I am getting there.

I have a friend ~J who left ~W~St at the same time I did. He went down the Java path and he seems to love it. But I think if he really got into C# and .NET he would like it to. It is just so smooth. And he would not have to be working in a language that will be dead in 6 or 7 years. :~)

Of course saying that, I don’t go though a day when I don’t say to myself what dumass thought of this. But most time that is CSS.

11 working days left before vacation. (well 10 I get Monday off).

~Z has a cold. I fear I might have a little one! Err.

Thewildword ~d.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Must Rest some time

It has been a wild few days. After not getting much sleep last week I have had a couple good nights of sleep. Still I feel vary tired. But I will try to bring everyone up to speed.

When I say that I have been trying to pull off the imposable at work I am not laying. I have been building a DHTML multi file upload control. As most of you know you can upload a file to a web site using a input control with a type of file. And you can have only upload more then one file if you have more then one input or type file on the page. And you can not style the input control at all.

Well. We have made a control that you can upload more then one file at time with and can style. It is stunning. But it is a challenge. I spent 2 days of my time last week working on it. There is still a little work to do. But when I am done, I will make sure everyone I know, knows about it. Those that are web programmers will be stunned I think.

Other that that. This weekend has been busy. Kung-fu Saturday morning, We got ~Z’s blood taken then come home. Both ~L and I had really bad headaches. For the most part we got over them in time to do Karaoke at the church Saturday night. It was fun.

Today I got to greet at the UU then we went to an Art showing, after that we just drove around a bit. It was nice. Then we ate. I worked out and that is about it. Seems like I did a lot.

We also got are tickets to San Diego. Maybe some time on vacation I will fill rested. HA!
YAY

Thewildword~d

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

2057.

So I watched the show 2057 on Discovery the other night. I liked what they came up with. I thought they did a good job of coming up with a nice middle of the road estimate of what live could be like in 50 years. Some of the things I think they were a little too conservative with. Other to far out. But a nice middle of the road guess is about the best we can hope for.

They went into transportation and computer power. It all looked good. But what got me most was the 1st hour of the 3 hour show they talked about medical advances. The ability re-grow body parts and the like. It seemed that by 2057 you could fix just about anything. And from some other stuff I have been reading I can believe that maybe the case.

Were as I really liked this. Everything around the medical advancements really bothers me. It seems that out need to serve humanity did not grow with our ability. Insurance companies still control who gets saved and how does not. And they have the power to drop you from your insurance at any whim and any reason. Even going so far as to monitor you and go through your garbage to find trespasses agents a health live style.

I think for humanity to live up to its greatness we need to make sure that all humanity (that wants it) is severed. If you need a new hart or arm or whatever you can get it. It cost us more as a race to lose one of us that it cost us in cash.
Anyway. That is just my thoughts. I am all about universal health care. And I do think it would be good to have fabric that was monitoring health sighs and could call for help if needed. But I don’t think that info should go to the government or insurance company. No decision about you leave of care should be base on it.
Well that is my thought.
Thewildword~d

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Things going down

Ok. It seems that as soon as I get a raze to a far about at work. There Seems to be no end of things that are lining up to take that $$.

1st there is the TV. Not the pig one but the small one in the living room. We had kind of planed on getting a new TV anyway. But the TV has a filter going out or something. The top 8th of the screen has white lines running though it. Anything near the top kind of loops around and starts going down. So we need a new TV.

2nd ~L computer. It seems to have gone down. It was having a problem where is would just stop seeing ½ the memory. So I took the memory out and put it back in to see if I could get it to work better. Now it dose not work at all. I hit the power button the green light comes on then it sounds like power is going though the system but it dose not fire up the hard drive. Nothing comes on the screen and after about 3 seconds the green light goes off. ~L needs a computer. So we need a new computer.

Well I am guessing that is about the only 2 things for now lining up to take our $$. Still that is more than I wish. We still need to get ticks for CA. will have to wait till Friday when I get paid. But we well get them.

I guess I am just a little upset because this just pushes back things I want and want to do. But I guess this happens. Maybe by the end of summer things will be better. But I am guessing not. There will be car stuff that comes up this summer. going to have to get it registered here in WA and that will cost over $100. need to get us all passports about $300 there.

Sorry to be such a downer.

Anyway. Maybe I will hit the button and the computer will just come up tomorrow.

On the up side ~Z is sleeping in a bed not a crib now. And she has started to use the potty. Not bad for someone who is not even 2 yet!

Thewildword~d

DISCOVERY PARK

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Kung fu. Seattle Kung-fu

So a friend of mind started a Kung fu school out here is Seattle a few months ago. It is a good School and she is a good Teacher. Vary Good. The problem is getting the word out. I have done her web site. http://www.shaolinseattle.com/. but even after several months of being up the page dose not show up on Google or other search pages. I know one of the was to get the word out is to have links to it. So if you can please but links up on your page, blogs or wherever you can.

The School is vary good. ~Sarah is a good teacher. I really want her to succeeded. I feel bad because I have a hard time getting over there to class. I is just on the other side of the lake from me. I so wish I could do more.

Thewildword~d