Blog

How the PC hardware market has changed in the past 5 years... 2 years ago
I've mostly ignored the hardware market for the past 5 years... until my desktop started acting up, which then caused an unplanned 2-week project to get my computer going. It all ended well. I didn't even need to resort to my BackBlaze backup. A bunch of stuff hasn't changed, not in the slightest…

Brian O'Leary, Ex-Astronaut 3 years ago
Brian O'Leary was one of the " Excess Eleven ", the second group of Scientist-Astronauts hired by NASA in the midst of the Apollo program. In terms of the space program, he's pretty much a footnote, one of several who left or were forced out of the astronaut corps throughout the past few decades…

This website should look a little different now 3 years ago
It's generally regarded as stupid to spend a bunch of time writing your own CMS. It's the website equivalent of spending hours fiddling with your vi config. Or the software equivalent of sorting your record collection in biographical order. Heck, I know folks who work on WordPress. They are…

Illnesses of the non-visible sort 5 years ago
Since Sept 19th or so, I've had a series of colds with a little bit of ‘normal' time but then it comes back. This has meant some working from home and some times where I had conversations at work that I wasn't fully present for. On the other hand, you can hear it in my voice... the blocked sinuses…

A few thoughts on Yahoo and Microsoft's respective troubles 5 years ago
When I was working at Yahoo!, Microsoft tried to acquire Yahoo!. And I generally thought of it as a bad idea. At the time, my feelings were that if the deal went through, it would almost certainly mean the end of both companies... and I wasn't too interested in working for Microsoft. Although I…

The tumblr of my mind... or... katas of more than one artistic pursuit 5 years ago
One of my coworkers joked that he'd really love to see a tumblr of "What's on Ken's mind". Because people get used to the idea that there's usually a bunch of stuff working it's way through my brain at the same time and that if I mention what I did lately outside of work in conversation, there's…

The frustration that is trying to do DRM-free eBooks legally 7 years ago
I've kinda come to terms with buying eBooks instead of physical books, even though there are a lot of archivist implications involved that bug me. However, I still heavily dislike the use of DRM, so I want to avoid this as much as possible. And this turns out to be tricky... The problem with DRM, in…

Prison sex and Robert Schiro... or a fate too vile and disgusting for my worst enemy 8 years ago
A good example of somebody who approaches the level of worst enemy would be something akin to Robert Schiro, who already has his license suspended, hit a cyclist with his BMW, leaving her crippled for life, then drove off and tried to hide the evidence. And then, while he was waiting for sentencing…

On Ray Bradbury 8 years ago
One time, Kiki and I were talking about neon tubes and the usual standard of using a piece of paper to judge if the tubing had reached the annealing temperature. And both of us recited 451 degrees Fahrenheit as the ignition temperature of paper, at which point Christian pointed out that it's not an…

Almost Unchanging obsessiveness 8 years ago
If you go into the things I was obsessed with while younger, it was something like this: Science Fiction Music and audio electronics Art and photography Computers and electronics Space and aviation These days, the list is something like this: Science Fiction Music and audio electronics Art and…