Author Archives: specialk

Sarah Connor Chronicles

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So what makes this show compelling is unclear.

One aspect that dearly works is the lead. Unlike Linda Hamilton who in T1 and T2 were the movie’s weakest link, in this show Sarah Connor is played with restraint. There is none of the mayhem or chaos or bad acting. Instead we have despair, desperation and hope finely balanced.

Another aspect is the terminator who acts as John’s bodyguard. Both in T1 and T2 the future warrior was poorly acted. In T1 the actor delivered some memorably poorly acted lines. In T2 Arnie had become such a star that we had him attempt to show the softer kinder gentler Terminator. So much so that he obliterated some of the scariness of the machines.

In this show the terminator is disturbing. We don’t see her as a loveable Data, the robot from StarTrek like we did Amie in T2, but something sinister. Something that could blow up at any moment in time. And that makes you uncomfortable. She’s almost like a pet lion. Sure the lion seems friendly, but is it, really?

So maybe it is the acting and the character development.

But that discounts the plot a lot. One of the frustrating aspects of the movies was the fact only one person got through. But with a time machine I could keep trying again and again. One angle the series has explored is the notions of a temporal war. Essentially both future factions send commando’s into the past to perform missions to ensure final victory. In come cases John stumbles on these plots must deal with them.

Again after 4 episodes, I must strongly recommend this show.

Archive, damn you! Archive!

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After reading about how the folks in Redmond can not get Outlook .ost files to work if they are greater than 2GB, and recognizing the challenges of not using cached mode, I decided, foolish boy that I am, to archive my email.

So, of course, when I did the archive, I, foolishly assumed that the damnable software would do a "cut-and-paste" not a "copy-and-paste".

Darn.

It was "copy-and-paste". So after enduring the pain that is the archive process, I must now endure the pain that is the "select-1000’s-of-files" and delete them process. Including the always fun "re-sync-your-local-folder-with-the-exchange-server-spasm".

I am going to go to sleep now.

Maybe if I am lucky I will be able to use my email client tomorrow.

Movie Review: Knight Rider 2008

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Alone at home watching on my TiVo, the made-for-tv move Knight Rider.

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I didn’t think it was possible to be both worse and better than the original at the same time.

And yet the writers of this show achieved the impossible.

The part they nailed was the peculiar relationship between the driver and car. Ironically they nailed that in ads and not during the actual show.

The parts that are unquestionably better are the special effects.

The parts that are worse is the acting and the story line. The cheese effect was so high that I am darned certain that years were shaved off of my life.

Of course, when I say worse, I mean it in a relative sense. Any show from the 80’s will be worse than a show produced now. However, given the standards we have for today, this was relatively worse.

And what was really bizarre was that unlike the original show that was clearly targeted towards youngish boys, this show chose to have some pretty adult material. For example, in the opening segment we have Sydney Tamiia Poitier,

playing the role of  FBI agent Carrie Rivai, who is showering off the salt after a day of surfing, and we get a real close-up of her barely covered chest. And just when it could not get any weirder, she’s chatting with her female one-night stand whose mostly naked. And just when you thought you’d seen it all, to prove this is a straight person’s show, we see Michael Traceur in bed with woman, when another scantily clad female joins him a few seconds later.

And fine even if I could get over the sex, there was your usual assortment of  over-the-top violence.

I’m not a prude, but this level of sex and violence, was odd.

And, come-on, Michael Traceur is Michael Knight’s son?

I don’t think this will be back…

www.librarything.com

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Bernadette remarked that the web site www.LibraryThing.com does in fact allow me to export my data.

Since I can now do that, I think I will actually give the place a whirl.

My first impressions are remarkably positive.

I like the use of tags to organize information, rather than the use of fixed columns.

I like the fact that web site can search through Amazon.com or the Library of Congress to fill in information about books.

For example, I typed in “the echo maker” in the “add books” section of the web site.

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And then the web site very quickly gave me the option to select from a set of books that matched “the echo maker”.

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I picked the one by Richard Powers, and, just like that, my library know had all of the information about that book.

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All it took was 15 key presses and one mouse click!

Update: Feb 17, 2008 because I mistyped the web site.

Who owns my data?

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After I wrote about my Access adventures, Michael Rubin recommended a very interesting web site as an alternative to rolling my own application.

While I was looking at the site, I could not but help to notice the word Beta.

Here’s my anxiety: it will take a lot of time and effort to enter all of the data into this web site. And this web site is a small venture by a small team in Portland.

What happens if this small web site goes out of business? Do I have to re-enter all of my data all over again?

I really want the ability to have a hard-copy of the data that is independent of the web site. Such that if the web site goes down, I can move my data to some other provider.

And as much as it pains me, I feel compelled to agree with the folks at Data Portability. I own the data, not the company that keeps a record of them. I don’t have a problem with them profiting from my data, but damn it why won’t they give me  a copy?

Adventures in MS Access 2007

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I have way too many books in my house.

One of the challenges of having too many books, is that sometimes (and with increasingly alarming frequency) I end up buying the same book twice!

So I decided to create a simple database using Access 2007.

Creating the schema was fairly trivial. It consisted of three tables:

Book (BookID, Title)

Authors (AuthorID, FirstName, LastName)

AuthorBookMap (AMID, BookID, AuthorID)

Once I got my tables, I wanted to create, what I thought was a fairly simple data-entry mechanism:Imagine a button: AddNewBook

Which would take me to a wizard:

ask for book title

ask for author (s)

Which would then conclude with the action of

update book and author table and add authorbookmap entry.

Turns out that this simple activity is non trivial, and is turning into an illuminating, and informative experience into the very nature of how MS Apps are put together.

Because, for whatever reason, the company that popularized or pioneered wizards did not think that having wizard creation tools in the most popular database on the planet was a necessity.

I am now struggling to understand how you use VB 6.5 (Visual Basic 6.5) to create a wizard. And I believe it is possible, but the complexity is staggering!

Christmas comes to Raynor Park!

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Every year the Raynor Park Neighborhood Association invites Santa Claus to tour our neighborhood. This year, as our first vice president, I participated in the whole event. And boy was it a lot of fun.

A whole bunch of us got together to decorate Santa’s sleigh, a 38 year old truck that still has it’s original engine. 

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And not only did we decorate Santa’s sleigh. We also decorated some of the lead cars that followed us:

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We even got some of his reindeer ready:

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Soon enough, however, Santa showed up ready to go. And we all tried to get our pictures taken with him. After all we’re all youngish at heart 🙂

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And then the ride around Raynor Park began. IMG_2386

 

As children saw us they would come out and greet Santa. Santa’s sleigh would stop and the kids both young and old would get their picture taken!

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And even the four-legged variety were excited!

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Hopefully next year we’ll not only get more kids but we’ll also get more of our neighbors to join in getting Santa’s ride ready.

If you want to reach the Raynor Park Neighborhood Association send an email at admin at raynorshine.org