tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80250312010-03-07T12:45:07.536-05:00<p>They're here. They're hungry. They already have me.</p><p>You're next.</p>Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.comBlogger402125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-27155236787770676562009-12-31T17:05:00.006-05:002009-12-31T17:39:50.288-05:00

I saw this list of "banned words," via Reddit, and thought I could supply a few of the more common ones heard around my place of work. Of course all these words and phrases are IT- and corporate-speak. Use them at your peril, since they are known to suck the soul out of young, honest, hard-working persons. I am already a cube zombie, so there's no hope for my soul.Space. Subject area or topic. "I

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-31473177261567338842009-12-29T09:00:00.000-05:002009-12-28T15:28:32.112-05:00

I caught this article discussing who created God. Interesting. Of the three premises in the article, they address only two:Does the universe have a beginning? (Most agree it does.)Denial of cause and effect (Something about quantum mechanics, and about something being created out of nothing.)The third premise in their proof is not addressed at all. I quote it here: "God, unlike the universe, had

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-57337907946401760352009-12-28T18:00:00.002-05:002009-12-28T18:00:01.342-05:00

Let's start with an anecdote. I once had a former cube neighbor loudly accuse me of being a "damn liberal," in much the same tones as we often hear from the likes of Limbaugh, Coulter, and others. I almost couldn't believe he was "going there," as they say. The only reply possible, and which I gave him, was that he didn't know anything about me. Which he didn't.So the other day I read that the

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-75970494101909564892009-12-28T16:00:00.002-05:002009-12-28T16:00:01.362-05:00

This follow-up post is part review of Avatar, and part continued discussion of my story, A Far Sun. (Hey, it's my story; I'll talk about it if I want.)I've read a few reviews/commentaries on James Cameron's newest movie blockbuster, Avatar. Some guy on Reddit posted "$300 million, and all we get are Native American space elves?" I responded sarcastically, something to the effect that I was sure

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-1840389465458961202009-12-27T00:00:00.001-05:002009-12-27T00:06:13.334-05:00

Well, this is interesting.I was determined that during my holiday this year I would make some really good progress on my story, A Far Sun. Well, I did. I worked through the blocker I'd been facing, got some really good inspiration, and shot right through to ...The end of book 2. Book 3, and the exciting conclusion is to follow. Sometime over the next year, probably.Now, I have no freaking idea

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-56546061753815688682009-11-30T17:00:00.005-05:002009-11-30T17:00:03.263-05:00

For instance, "no one can ever tell you what a UML diagram means."If you're old like I am, this is so true. Maybe it's true for everyone.This article is about how some of the old-timers at Microsoft still program with their good ole text editor. I am not the Luddite that some may be, but my take on MDD (model-driven development) is that it might be good in the initial stages of layout and design,

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-24864386419371838032009-11-30T16:30:00.002-05:002009-11-30T16:30:00.668-05:00

I've seen the trailers for this new Disney animated feature. My initial impression has been that the toothless firefly character (well, almost toothless) is racist in the way he is portrayed. But perhaps blacks see him in a different light. It's a fine line to be walked, no doubt.My family members are Hispanic. Both my wife and her daughter (now living with us) felt the firefly image to be

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-76668905604647817452009-11-24T12:45:00.001-05:002009-11-24T12:45:00.871-05:00

I got so busy (and feeling somewhat burned-out, as well) so I put the story down awhile. I think I last wrote some content on October 31, and not until Sunday night did I start back into it, again. I did write about 7K words in my other story, Rider on the Storm (the current working title), and I've figured out a few things in that plot, too. I also realized I transited into act two at about the

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-30701172152005347082009-11-24T12:30:00.001-05:002009-11-24T12:30:12.854-05:00

A little while ago I blogged about some of the bugs I encountered when I installed the Karmic Koala Netbook Remix on my Acer netbook. Here's the run-down:I never got past the upgrade installation glitch. Instead I booted from the CD and installed Karmic from there. I upgraded my desktop over the web. It only took about 5 hours to download the whole thing via my wireless network, but it worked.I

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-52579982628471339492009-11-05T19:55:00.001-05:002009-11-05T20:00:55.142-05:00

It isn't yet ready for public release, but Google has the latest development build nicely packaged for flavors of Linux that can install from a .deb file. Ubuntu (I have Karmic Koala--the Netbook Remix) is one of the flavors of Debian, so installing Chrome was fairly easy.When installing it asked about importing Firefox settings, which I assumed meant bookmarks (among other things). It may have

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-62420387035908426452009-11-02T14:40:00.009-05:002009-11-02T15:34:59.816-05:00

I won't bore everyone with all the details, but here are some of the defects I've observed with the Karmic Koala (9.10) Netbook Remix:Installation: The first time I inserted the CD, it asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the new distribution. For one reason or another, I elected not to, but it never asked me again. Furthermore, When I tried to run Update Manager to perform the upgrade, it kept

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-55987156581148849612009-10-31T19:00:00.002-04:002009-10-31T19:02:27.188-04:00

If you don't know who (er, what) Karmic Koala is, I will gladly educate. Karmic Koala is the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release, which came out October 29, 2009. With all the press talking about Windows 7, this latest update from Canonical has all but been lost in the noise.But fair enough. Why should you (or anyone) care?Believe it or not, for most purposes (that is, the purposes most people put to

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-22125000096788922302009-10-26T16:30:00.002-04:002009-10-26T16:30:00.616-04:00

As a follow-on to my post last month, I am making very good progress. The tendency to which I had eluded--that of being an inveterate story-teller and discovery writer--well, I am getting better at recognizing this in my writing, and catching myself before I've gone off on any really long tangents. This time around I detected no fewer than four sub-plots I was following (how does this happen? he

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-29176845685010002072009-10-10T15:15:00.001-04:002009-10-10T15:15:33.669-04:00

My stepdaughter is a senior in art school. Money is tight, so we have offered to have her come live with us. This really is much easier and less expensive than trying to help her monetarily, otherwise. As long as we don't fall on any really bad financial hardships, collectively, we should be fine.Now my biggest problem is clearing out our office (really the front bedroom in our two bedroom condo)

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-47094746962001813592009-10-10T13:00:00.001-04:002009-10-10T13:00:02.298-04:00

[T]he problem of race in America has never been solely or predominantly a minority issue. It is first and foremost, as Carter said, a problem of whiteness.A little while back I posted my opinion of folks who are making very vocal complaints about being labeled racist. Today I come across this article which expands the point even further. It is a bit long but worth reading, especially if you care

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-54203877316975890552009-10-10T02:00:00.001-04:002009-10-10T02:12:29.744-04:00

I came across this short post quoting Owen Flanagan from The Problem of the Soul. He mentions subjectivity of thought in regards to evaluating science against other "forms of discourse":My view is that if you are going to claim that all forms of discourse are equally subjective, you better have real familiarity with all the forms of discourse you aim to level.But science really isn't a subjective

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-66312120743147108872009-09-20T20:00:00.002-04:002009-09-20T20:00:00.746-04:00

It's been a few months since I posted about my current story, A Far Sun. Since then I've written about 30K words (bringing the word count to just about 191K). Though I've said this before, I'm definitely into the third act. There's a risk of bogging down in a lot of complicated sub-plots, but I'm aware of the danger and I'm taking steps to minimize the confusion. This means there are a few

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-25005481031671994202009-09-20T18:35:00.004-04:002009-09-20T18:51:47.165-04:00

I wrote some stuff the other day, and wondered if I was being overly critical. Then I read this. And this.Nah. I'm right in the middle.

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-3224443669115616492009-09-18T19:45:00.001-04:002009-09-18T19:46:03.258-04:00

Remember the other day I commented about racism in the South? I lived in and around Atlanta, and DeKalb County (they pronounce it "deh-CAB"--no "L") is one of the counties that comprise the metro area.Now we have some white guy saying "I learned about slavery in history" when all he really needed to do was fucking look around. They got monuments to the "noble ideas of the South," most of which

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-77269145435470136832009-09-18T15:24:00.004-04:002009-09-18T16:03:29.481-04:00

I read this article (it's not long, but if you have a writer's bent, very funny) discussing the stilted prose of World-Famous Best-Selling Auther Dan Brown. And yes, I meant to say "Auther."I've only struggled through--er, read one Dan Brown novel, Digital Fortress. Whoof. He is certainly a Famous Auther, but boy is he a crappy writer. I'm sure he laughs all the way to the bank, and I still have

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-83197888919432412912009-09-17T13:46:00.003-04:002009-09-17T13:57:06.720-04:00

I looked at this headline, "Left Concludes: We're All Racists"It's the lowest common denominator, folks. I am not a "leftist" though I suppose I have liberal views on social issues. I believe in public education and that we really need a better solution for healthcare. I don't think either of those positions makes me a leftist; centrist is fairly accurate, along with about 70% of all Americans.I

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-36765363127885315912009-08-15T23:00:00.001-04:002009-08-15T23:16:34.618-04:00

The other day I waxed poetic about whether to replace Ubuntu desktop on my netbook, or to continue as I had been going. I have decided.I installed the "Netbook Remix" version of Ubuntu 9.04 ("Jaunty Jackalope"). It's nice, though I did like the multiple desktop feature of the regular version. On my home desktop machine (the one with two monitors), having two desktops isn't very important.

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-65730541399018529562009-08-13T21:15:00.001-04:002009-08-13T21:19:26.257-04:00

Who knew? Turns out I installed the "regular" version of Ubuntu 9.04 (aka "Jaunty Jackalope") on my Acer netbook. But they have a "Netbook Remix" version that's been optimized for smaller screens. And, uh, they were right; it's cooler.I followed the instructions for loading the distro on a memory stick. I so happen to have a 4 GB jump drive I don't use, so I copied the image to it. It's just shy

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-84822252311501486442009-08-02T15:00:00.001-04:002009-08-02T15:00:01.265-04:00

A little while ago I posted my annual "summer gadget love" update, outlining some of the interesting tech toys I have acquired. I thought I'd provide a few updates.My Vantec hard drive docking station ("drive toaster") has essentially died after a year. It keeps unmounting and mounting the drive all by itself, which is damned irritating.I am replacing it with a fan-cooled hard drive enclosure

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8025031.post-16623015583837371602009-08-02T13:10:00.001-04:002009-08-02T13:12:51.067-04:00

We saw the movie Moon Friday night. It stars Sam Rockwell, who is essentially the only actor, outside of Kevin Spacey who does voice-over for GERTY, the base computer. Yes, think HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are numerous allusions to the 1968 Stanley Kubrick classic, which I found unobtrusive and mostly appropriate.The movie is a psychological character drama that showcases Sam

Cooganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10149418862293622850coogan@mindspring.com0