While setting up this new blog, I discovered that Blogger already had an "A Just Machine" blog (which is why my blogspot.com URL has dashes in it.) It's a Canadian political blog that has not updated since 2007, and for whatever reason it drops the spaces in the name. Not sure what Steely Dan has to do with being a Conservative in Canada, but it is what it is.
I doubt that anyone who reads either blog (assuming anyone reads either one, of course) will confuse the two, but just in case you came here looking for some Tory snark from the late Aughts, here's the blog you want: ajustmachine.blogspot.com.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Moving Day
I've decided to keep the blog going but move to Blogger from my generic web-hosting provider. Nothing against them, they have been great, but I can't justify even the small amount I am paying them when I am only using the service to host a Wordpress installation. When I'm ready to start building actual web apps they will be the first place I will go.
I had to do a lot of finagling with my registrar to try to get the old domain name to point to the new blog, and it will be at least an hour before I know whether everything is set up correctly. For now ajustmachine.com pulls up a Google 404 page. I guess the fact that Google is responding is a somewhat hopeful sign.
Update: www.ajustmachine.com now points to this blog, but the bare domain name does not. It may take a while longer for the A records to propagate (look at me, dropping hard-core DNS terminology.)
Update 2: looks like I missed the setting that auto-redirects the bare domain name to the www address. Now ajustmachine.com works, too. Hooray!
I had to do a lot of finagling with my registrar to try to get the old domain name to point to the new blog, and it will be at least an hour before I know whether everything is set up correctly. For now ajustmachine.com pulls up a Google 404 page. I guess the fact that Google is responding is a somewhat hopeful sign.
Update: www.ajustmachine.com now points to this blog, but the bare domain name does not. It may take a while longer for the A records to propagate (look at me, dropping hard-core DNS terminology.)
Update 2: looks like I missed the setting that auto-redirects the bare domain name to the www address. Now ajustmachine.com works, too. Hooray!
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Tempus fugit
I got a call from my registrar yesterday saying that the domain for this site had just auto-renewed. I didn't realize it had been a year already.
When I registered this domain, I gave myself a year to do something with it, like blogging on a regular basis, or launching a small web app or two. As it stands it took me 6 months to get around to writing my first blog post, and since then I've made 8 posts including this one. As for web apps, I'm still working through the same Rails tutorial, so nothing much on that front either.
If I had gotten a single non-spam comment, or other indication that anyone was reading this blog, I might keep going. As it stands, I think I'm going to shut the whole thing down for now.
When I registered this domain, I gave myself a year to do something with it, like blogging on a regular basis, or launching a small web app or two. As it stands it took me 6 months to get around to writing my first blog post, and since then I've made 8 posts including this one. As for web apps, I'm still working through the same Rails tutorial, so nothing much on that front either.
If I had gotten a single non-spam comment, or other indication that anyone was reading this blog, I might keep going. As it stands, I think I'm going to shut the whole thing down for now.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Like rain on your wedding day
I listened to part of a Diane Rehm interview with Barry Manilow on my way to and from getting lunch yesterday.
Like many pop singers, he records songs he wrote himself, and songs written by others.
In the written-by-others category: "I Write the Songs."
Admittedly, the "I" in the song is supposed to be Music incarnate, not Barry Manilow, but still...
Like many pop singers, he records songs he wrote himself, and songs written by others.
In the written-by-others category: "I Write the Songs."
Admittedly, the "I" in the song is supposed to be Music incarnate, not Barry Manilow, but still...
Saturday, June 15, 2013
My weed trimmer is the reincarnation of Zorro
Either that, or Lord Voldemort.
Kids, this is why you shouldn't trim weeds in shorts.
Hat tip to my younger son, who came up with the Harry Potter reference when he saw the marks.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
In which I become perhaps a bit too excited...
...because John Scalzi is in town tonight! I'm heading out in just a few minutes.
This is, I believe, the first time he has been here since I started reading him, several years ago. I've got my copies of OMW, Redshirts, and THD ready to go, the last two purchased from Quail Ridge, of course.
Yes, I did buy paper copies of two books I already have on my Kindle. How's that for fandom?
My son (who is reading over my shoulder) says I should follow up the last sentence with "BOOSH!" Too much?
This is, I believe, the first time he has been here since I started reading him, several years ago. I've got my copies of OMW, Redshirts, and THD ready to go, the last two purchased from Quail Ridge, of course.
Yes, I did buy paper copies of two books I already have on my Kindle. How's that for fandom?
My son (who is reading over my shoulder) says I should follow up the last sentence with "BOOSH!" Too much?
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Speaking of Stargate: Universe...
As I mentioned in my post on John Scalzi's The Human Division, upon finding out the book ended on a semi-cliffhanger, with several narrative threads left unresolved, my mind jumped immediately to Stargate: Universe due to Scalzi's association with that show, and because it, too, ended with a goodly number of loose ends.
Happily, there will be a next season for THD. As for SG:U, even if the writers and producers had wrapped everything up at the end, I still would have been miffed just because it was ending. Although I did not like the second season as much as the first, it was still pretty good. And I really, really liked the first season, especially the early episodes.
The third part of the series premiere hit so many of the right hard-SF notes for me, in fact, that I think that the goodwill from that one episode helped keep me watching until the end, even if later episodes were not quite as strong.
What made it so much better than most television SF? Here's a comparison:
Typical SF TV problem: The ship, which looks inside and out like a luxury car just off the showroom floor, crewed with happy, competent, highly-trained people, is being attacked by a mysterious energy being from the depths of space!
SG:U problem: The ship is thousands of years old and is falling apart. The "crew" is a band of soldiers and civilians who got dumped on board by unexpected events. Oh, and the technology is alien, so almost nobody aboard knows (or can figure out) how it works. They are able to figure out one thing: the CO2 scrubbers are failing, and once the scrubbers fail, these folks are all going to die, slowly.
Typical SF TV fix: We can reverse the polarity of the bogonic field to create a beam of quuxons that will drive the creature away!
SG:U fix: We need lime. Not limes, lime. Calcium oxide. There's a possible source nearby. It's a desert planet that makes Tatooine look like a Sandals resort. Since we don't have any vehicles, hopefully there's some within walking distance. Otherwise, we're back to the "everybody dies" part.
Typical SF TV resolution: At a shouted command from the charismatic commanding officer, a crew member taps meaningfully on a touchscreen to implement the critical polarity reversal, just in time!
SG:U resolution: Crew members trudge through the hot sand with chemistry kits, stopping to periodically perform titration experiments to find the right kind of lime. They go past the deadline, and only make it back because one of them, a civilian, risks losing a limb or even dying in order to delay a countdown.
Seriously, I almost cried when I saw the actors swirling sand around in a freaking Erlenmeyer flask in order to save the day. Here it was, late 2009, and somebody had finally made an sf TV show that felt like the stuff from the 50's that I had read as a kid. Plus, it made all those times I had watched stuff drip out of a pipette in high school and college seem so much more meaningful.
There was something of a downhill slide after that (The communication stones. Dear Lord, the communication stones.) It wasn't as much of a space opera as other SF shows, but it got to be a lot more of a soap opera than those shows, which is just as bad. I still miss that show, though. It definitely ended too soon.
Happily, there will be a next season for THD. As for SG:U, even if the writers and producers had wrapped everything up at the end, I still would have been miffed just because it was ending. Although I did not like the second season as much as the first, it was still pretty good. And I really, really liked the first season, especially the early episodes.
The third part of the series premiere hit so many of the right hard-SF notes for me, in fact, that I think that the goodwill from that one episode helped keep me watching until the end, even if later episodes were not quite as strong.
What made it so much better than most television SF? Here's a comparison:
Typical SF TV problem: The ship, which looks inside and out like a luxury car just off the showroom floor, crewed with happy, competent, highly-trained people, is being attacked by a mysterious energy being from the depths of space!
SG:U problem: The ship is thousands of years old and is falling apart. The "crew" is a band of soldiers and civilians who got dumped on board by unexpected events. Oh, and the technology is alien, so almost nobody aboard knows (or can figure out) how it works. They are able to figure out one thing: the CO2 scrubbers are failing, and once the scrubbers fail, these folks are all going to die, slowly.
Typical SF TV fix: We can reverse the polarity of the bogonic field to create a beam of quuxons that will drive the creature away!
SG:U fix: We need lime. Not limes, lime. Calcium oxide. There's a possible source nearby. It's a desert planet that makes Tatooine look like a Sandals resort. Since we don't have any vehicles, hopefully there's some within walking distance. Otherwise, we're back to the "everybody dies" part.
Typical SF TV resolution: At a shouted command from the charismatic commanding officer, a crew member taps meaningfully on a touchscreen to implement the critical polarity reversal, just in time!
SG:U resolution: Crew members trudge through the hot sand with chemistry kits, stopping to periodically perform titration experiments to find the right kind of lime. They go past the deadline, and only make it back because one of them, a civilian, risks losing a limb or even dying in order to delay a countdown.
Seriously, I almost cried when I saw the actors swirling sand around in a freaking Erlenmeyer flask in order to save the day. Here it was, late 2009, and somebody had finally made an sf TV show that felt like the stuff from the 50's that I had read as a kid. Plus, it made all those times I had watched stuff drip out of a pipette in high school and college seem so much more meaningful.
There was something of a downhill slide after that (The communication stones. Dear Lord, the communication stones.) It wasn't as much of a space opera as other SF shows, but it got to be a lot more of a soap opera than those shows, which is just as bad. I still miss that show, though. It definitely ended too soon.
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