[crouton] Nathaniel Trost: Vizier's Candy Cane Death Trap

[crouton at lists.powerblogs.com]

Posted by Nathaniel Trost:
Vizier's Candy Cane Death Trap
http://crouton.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2005_12_04-2005_12_10.shtml#=
1133831898


   The office is now festooned with a truly disturbing amount of holiday
   decorations. The hallway where I work now features an incongruous
   marriage of tinsel and NASCAR banners. However, the true kicker is the
   constellation of ornaments, many of them shiny and pointy that dangle
   from the ceiling tiles. After far too many years of video-gaming, I
   can=E2t help but have Prince of Persia flashbacks and eye them warily as
   I make my way back to my office. The hindbrain whispers falling spike
   traps!
   To touch upon a previous entry, at last I finally know [1]what the
   hell AJAX is. At some point in the future I may find myself building
   something that could be considered a web based application sitting on
   top of a database back-end. This will require brain absorption of a
   whole host of technologies and acronyms that I was able to remain
   blissfully ignorant of. When an entire field moves so fast that it=E2s a
   full-time job just keeping current, I tend to stop trying entirely.
   This is a major reason why I don=E2t use Linux in any shape or form in a
   desktop capacity. My UNIX chops were honed back in the early 90s on
   Sun workstations, so I=E2m well familiar with core UNIX principles and
   even some of the vagarities of the monstrosity that is X11. There is
   nothing in that environment that is needed by my daily life to make it
   worth living through the equivalent of building a kit car that is
   never done just so I have a different close window icon on my Firefox
   window.
   And, you know, cut and paste is kind of nice to have.
   I really haven=E2t been doing much technical or creative thinking. At
   present, the energy and time demands on the personal sphere of my life
   are intense and severe. Thankfully work has proven busy without being
   cataclysmic which allows me to do my job, deal with the Other Stuff
   and then zone out with WoW, backlogged tv shows or a book. In a few
   months, the time I=E2m currently spending running instances with old
   gaming buddies would be a waste of time. But for the present, it is a
   much needed bit of sanity maintenance.
   Today=E2s =E2Holiday Luncheon=E2 announcement email made me long for
   red-green colorblindness. I=E2m not sure which is scarier, thinking
   alternating red and green words was okay, or being willing the
   colorization in Outlook by hand for several dozen words.

References

   1. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/crouton/posts/%E2