occasional crw

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Zero Search Results?
This one's for you Google people. I was wondering today what happens when someone searches for something and there are, gasp!, zero search results. In my mind, it kicks off some automated process to break the query down and go out into the wilds of the web, actually looking for - nay, tracking down, the proper response. What the hell could this pesky human possibly be searching for that isn't already indexed by me?

Take it one step further. Properties like Blogger or Knol or YouTube - content creation properties - have the opportunity to prompt users to create content that others may be looking for based on unfulfilled queries. Example: I search Google for some nonsense word "splingy-doo" - no results. Automated process kicks off, then some 1% of posters on Blogger/Knol/YouTube get a tiny link somewhere on the page "do you know what a splingy-doo is?" Next time someone searches for a splingy-doo, Google will have something to return.

Please tell me this is already happening, I want to live in that world.

pacifica
xiu and i jumped in the car yesterday and headed down towards pacifica. we purposefully got lost to see what we could find. the fog and the waves were incredible. on the way back up we stopped at fort funston and saw some setting-sun peek through the clouds. pictures pending upload.

THINGS I HATE: Vwag & Kotaku Edition
What's with Valleywag and Kotaku's newsfeeds lately? I need an all-caps one-or-two-word subject heading before the title of the post like I need a hole in my head. Is this self-importance? I don't get it...

fusor
life imitates art

richard dawkins is a charming individual with a great message that needs getting out, but that didn't stop me from nearly falling asleep during his lecture (nay, "conversation") yesterday evening. the message is an old one and it seems he's taken the last decade or so to refine it to a series of canned responses and sound bites, the likes of which my brain has developed natural defenses against. nikipedia got her copy of the selfish gene signed and i stood with her in line. if you've never stood in line for a book signing before, it's something you should do before you die.

Current Mood: not caffeinated enough
Current Music: server hum

Dear Lazy LJ
Please rip off Gtalk's AJAX IM implementation. I want in-browser IM and I want to save chats (or just excerpts) as journal entries. kthxbye.

Current Mood: is caffeinated a mood?
Current Music: vincent gallo

vancouver
i'll be vancouver next week on business. sorry i've been so busy lately. things should slow down a bit after the trip. (btw, posting via ljtalk my new fave - should allow {subject} for friends-only posts!)

holy crap
there's a navigation strip on my journal. how'd that get there?

cool
groovy. it's about time someone did this. a great idea well past its time. wake me when vox talk goes live, yeah? ;)

ljtalk
tap, tap. is this thing on?

new Tortoise 8/22
A Lazarus Taxon, 3xCD 1xDVD box set to be released Aug. 22nd. I'm hoping the video for Glass Museum will be included on the DVD - that's how I was first exposed to the group. Ah, fond memories.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Solid Steel Podcast

Feeling at home
My apartment is now mostly furnished. I got a gigantic IKEA bookshelf (72" x 72" for $150, not bad), a "modern desk" from Target, a kitchen table and chairs from Pier 1, and a hella expensive tatami bed from this little place down in Fremont called Murasaki Futon. The straw smell is beginning to subside, but the bed is really firm - firmer than I've ever had, and I'm hoping it does my back/posture some good.

All that remains is a desk chair. I've been a few places, but I can't really find anything suitable. All the chairs I've seen look like they're waiting for the oversized asses of office workers in polyester pants. I want something minimal, functional, hip. Not gaudy. Needs to match the brown carpet, dark walnut furniture scheme. Any suggestions on where to look?

Let's see... Cory came to visit from Syracuse, NY. We had some fun up in Marin and around the bay area. We saw The Essex Green at Rickshaw Stop with Vicki and Bryce. I exposed Cory to the whole Firefly/Serenity thing. We discovered Rasputin's Music and I left with Bonobo's Live Sessions cd and the latest Four Tet. Recently seen Morvern Callar, which was pretty good - and not just because Stereolab is on the soundtrack. Itching to see some Red Dwarf - Best Buy didn't have the dvd's.

Oh, and I've started formal Japanese lessons via the Japan Society of Northern California. Right now it's focusing on verbal communication, but I'm working on my kana recognition. I've got all the characters memorized, but it still takes a little while to piece them together into words with distinct sounds.

I've started designing my own blog/wiki software - just for my own consumption. I'm sick of half-assed solutions grafting a wiki into a blog or using a wiki as a blog. I looked at using Ruby, but it just isn't Perl. So it's back to Catalyst. Should be fun to start from the ground up, integrating all that I've learned from MT/WP/Drupal/TypePad/MediaWiki/MoinMoin and from the way

xb95 designed LifeWiki, and from Rui's Yaki project.

Extropy Institute Closing
For some reason this makes me very sad.

Best damn thing I've seen all day
Wes Anderson's American Express Ad

Maybe this is old, I dunno, but I got it via

lhl's blog.

Is it just me or does Wes give off a Beck vibe in this ad?

New photos
New photos are up.

(my fave)

Slowly but surely.

Quickies
- great music vid via

dkp via timmy jones.
- great photo via genewolf.
- Ras Tafari was an Ethiopian ruler before he was a religious movement. Go fig.
- updated my photo stream with pics from the last two weeks

Aided by

bulknews's Data::ObjectDriver debugging knowledge, we solved the metadata proxy save bug last night. And though thoroughly exhausted once I got home, had a lovely chat with

almostdarkblue to catch up.

Today is rest and relaxation in a big way. I'm gonna miss Turducken, but I'm not gonna miss lounging around all day in my pajamas.

Current Mood: satisfied

Most interesting.
Via genewolf (does she have an LJ? I dunno...): my most interesting flickr photos. I wonder what the algorithm is. With pictures of Suw towards the top, I'd wager it at least incorporates page views.

A quick life update: not doing any holidays this year. At all. Not going back to the east coast. Working on restructuring the metadata model at work; it's... challenging. Dinner tonight with the LJ crew (or at least, those still in town) in Japantown, followed by another all-night coding session. Lunch tomorrow with Mena & crew... "getting to knoooow yooou"...

I've been working up a rather lengthy post about a frustrating relationship non-starter experience that happened recently. Oddly enough, the day before it reached its logical conclusion, I (re)discovered Caribou and the song "Hello Hammerheads" - which sums up the situation quite nicely, I think.

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Caribou - Hello Hammerheads

Yes, that's right...
If cartoon characters rode Segways:

"I rode a Segway, who wants to touch me? I said who wants to fucking touch me?!" -cartman

"I rode a Segway, compare your lives to mine and then kill yourselves." -bender

When I rode a Segway:

"Wheeeeeee!"