Something new

The date: Friday, December 30. Kate and I walked to the beach from our host’s house. On the way, we stopped at a Walgreens to use the facilities and pick up some snacks. I happened to see a digital photo frame that could play video with sound, and I noticed that the demo clip of unrealistically happy and attractive women walking by themselves on beaches was accompanied by Brad Sucks‘ song “Dropping Out of School.” I would have expected to hear cheesy instrumental tunes, but someone out there has good taste in royalty-free music.

Anyway, we made it to the beach, and, as usually, I didn’t feel much like going into the water. It was just too cold for my blood. I really tried to go in, but I couldn’t stand it, so I was sitting on the sand again in no time (we didn’t bring a towel). The previous night, Kevin had told us that Broward County had launched a bicycle-rental program with stations in various places, and we found out that we’d be right near one of the stations, so when we were done at the beach, we checked it out.

There were some bikes locked up, and you could unlock one after swiping your credit card in this machine that was next to the bikes. So Kate and I each got one to ride around. The first thing I noticed was that the bikes were small and low to the ground; even Kate, who’s probably about average height for a person, found hers to be uncomfortable. The second thing I noticed was how sturdy and fully equipped they were. Each one had a basket, a bell, a lock, a light, fenders, three speeds, and other frills my childhood bicycles would have envied if only bicycles could feel. (I’ve always preferred single-speed bikes, so anything more than that seems lavish and unnecessary.)

But the best-equipped bicycle in the world can’t prepare you for a cruise down the bike lane of an American street. I had never actually ridden next to traffic before, and it was slightly unnerving. After we had gone a short distance, I proposed we turn back because it looked like the traffic next to us was only going to get worse. So, we brought our bikes back to be locked up again for someone else to use, except I guess I didn’t push mine into the locking thing all the way because I got charged an extra ten bucks on my credit card later.

That evening, our host made spaghetti for dinner, and then we all went out to a local bakery for coffee and light noms.

And then it was December 31. We were flying out from Miami International Airport, which I had never actually flown in or out of before. Early, early, early in the morning, we left our host’s place and took a taxi to the nearest Tri-Rail station, and then we took the Tri-Rail to the station before the airport because the station at the airport is closed, and then we had to take a connecting bus to the airport. Because the Tri-Rail doesn’t run very much on Saturdays, we had no choice but to get there very early. We were so far from MIA that I don’t even think we could have taken a taxi the whole way.

At the airport, I had time to dash off most of 2011: The Year in Review, and then we flew to Chicago. We had a long layover at O’Hare, but I didn’t want to go out into the city because it was cold and snowy and I didn’t want to have to go through security again. We managed to kill some time just by walking around and having a meal. And then we took good old Alaska Airlines back to Seattle.

Eventually, we were back at my place, and I was getting ready for guests to arrive for New Year’s Eve. I had been looking forward to this night for months since I knew I’d have one of the best views of the city’s fireworks show. Kate, understandably, wanted to enjoy the view of her eyelids, so she retired early as a few of my friends showed up. I tried to make sure it was nice and quiet for Kate (which was difficult, since several of the guys had already been partying), but Kate later said she didn’t hear a thing.

Three of my friends and I stood on the balcony and watched as dazzling fireworks erupted from the Space Needle for a good six or eight minutes. And so it was the new year.

Kate and I spent the first few days of the year buying things that she needed for cooking that I didn’t have. So now I actually have mixing bowls and pans and things like that. I had January 2 off because New Year’s Day was a Sunday, and then it was business as usual on January 3. I went to work, while Kate did her own thing. That week I had lunch with her every day, usually at home, but once she met me at work and we went to nearby 13 Coins.

Saturday, January 7, was the last night of Kate’s visit. In the evening, we went to see a foreign film (nothing romantic, just some boring movie about a kid) and then had a romantic dinner at Amore Infused. Since Kate wanted to make mulled wine after dinner and I didn’t have a corkscrew, we brought a bottle of wine with us and asked the waitress to uncork it. After our meal, we stealthily brought it home. (It was a good idea to eat there. I had never been there, it was great, and there was a fire in the kitchen a week later. It’s been closed since then.)

When we got home, Kate made mulled wine (I’m including the Wikipedia link since I had never heard of it), and we drank it out on the balcony. Even though it was cold outside, the mulled wine kept us warm. I didn’t think I would ever like hot wine, but it was pretty good. I managed to drink half a mug (I don’t have wine glasses), and I would like to have it again, when hopefully I’d be able to stomach more.

We slept for a few hours, and then it was almost time for Kate to go to the airport. I helped her pack (she’s a last-minute packer), and we headed there together. We arrived early, so we had a few minutes to kill before she had to go through to security. We savored those minutes, though I knew there would be many more soon.

Kate has quit her job in Russia and is coming here again on Friday. She’ll be staying with me for almost three months. I’ve never done anything like this before, and I’m excited for what the future holds.

Left-Handed.com sent me the wrong item and is ignoring me

I work for one of the largest online retailers, but we don’t sell everything. If I’m searching for a particularly rare item, I may have to turn elsewhere. Such was the case when I was looking to buy a left-handed Swiss Army knife a few months ago.

Apparently no company currently makes them, and only websites that sell them are a few online stores that cater to left-handers. Of those, I found that England-based Left-Handed.com had the best selection and the lowest prices, so in November, I ordered one there. Not long after, I received a left-handed Swiss Army knife from them, but it wasn’t the model I ordered. The one I wanted had scissors, and the one I got had some different tools, including a wrench.

I could see how they could have made that mistake. The two models are similarly priced (about $40), and the knife I got was packaged in its original box, which didn’t identify the model. They were probably next to each other on the shelf. No big deal, I figured. So I sent the store an e-mail letting them know about the mix-up and asking for an exchange (although I was secretly hoping they’d let me keep both).

Two weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything from them, so I went ahead and mailed them the knife in the original box with the invoice and a note asking for them to send me the right knife. I chose to send the package First Class (misleadingly, the lowest tier of service that the USPS offers for shipping), which, to Left-Handed.com in England, cost me $11. I didn’t count on them paying me back for any shipping more expensive than that, so I didn’t get a tracking number or anything.

After a few weeks, I still hadn’t heard from Left-Handed.com, so I sent them a message through the contact form on their website. The holidays came and went—no reply. Last week, I tried calling the phone number listed on their website, but no one picked up, not even an answering machine. Then I tried calling them during their business hours (1 AM to 8 AM Pacific Time—not an easy thing for me!), and no one picked up then either. Finally, I sent them another message via the contact form, asking as politely as possible for the item I bought.

Okay, so maybe I sent the first e-mail to a no-reply address. Maybe they didn’t get the package. Maybe their contact form is broken or my messages got stuck in their spam filter. Maybe they don’t have an answering machine, and maybe they had closed up shop early when I called. But I very much doubt that all of the above are true. They seem to be ignoring me, plain and simple. I understand that my story may not sound credible—maybe people have tried to rip them off before—but a simple “We don’t believe you” would be more courteous. If this was my fault, my mistake was to be too trusting.

At this point, I don’t know what recourse I have. I originally paid by PayPal, but it’s too late for me to file a complaint with them. (Of course, if I had thought to do it earlier, I would have.) It seems that the only way to get the attention of Left-Handed.com would be to buy something else from them, although I’m very unlikely to give them any more of my money due to the way they’ve treated me. It looks like I’m out 50 bucks, so I guess all I can do is warn everyone not to make the mistake of doing business with them.

Oh, and I’ll send them a link to this post too, in case it gets their attention.

I’ve often wondered if there’s a website that keeps track of the surprisingly common trend of homophobic public figures being outed as gay themselves. Turns out there is: Gay Homophobe succinctly announces “# days since the last prominent homophobe was caught in a gay sex scandal” (25 as of right now) and lists previous “winners” (there were seven last year alone).

“We the People” and separation of church and state

October 28, 2011

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Subject: “We the People” and separation of church and state

Dear Mr. President:

For the first time in my life, I am compelled to sit down and write a letter, by hand, to a government official. I am writing in response to today’s email by Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, to the signers of the “We the People” petitions, “Remove ‘In God We Trust’ from Currency” and “Edit the Pledge of Allegiance to Remove the Phrase ‘Under God’.”

Mr. DuBois wrote that you “strongly support” the separation of church and state but that “that does not mean there’s no role for religion in the public square.” Where do you draw the line? To me, the separation of church (religion) and state (government) means that our public officials, in their capacity as representatives chosen by the people, must not imply that our government favors some religions over others, or irreligion over religion; to do so is to hack away at the “wall of separation” that we hold so dear as Americans. Yet you and most other politicians do this all the time and then give non-answers when we demand change.

I am an atheist, but in order to pledge allegiance to the country of my birth, I must check my worldview at the door and take up someone else’s personal convictions. Is that freedom of religion?

Consider our previous motto and pledge: “of many, one”; “one nation indivisible.” Doesn’t the government’s favoritism toward particular religions pervert these ideals?

Respectfully,

Jordon Kalilich
Seattle, WA

I know that this will go straight into the trash and that the best reply I can hope for is a form letter saying, “Thanks for your letter, citizen. Vote for me,” but it would be worse if I had not written it at all.

Letting go of Google

For a long time, I’ve been concerned that Google knows more about me than any company should. I’ve never used many of their services—I’ve never used Gmail, for example (gasp, shock, etc.)—but I’ve used their web search a heck of a lot over the years, and I’m sure that they could build a pretty cohesive profile of me just from that.

To protect my privacy from Google, I figured GoogleSharing (a proxy for Google services) was the way to go, and I actually used it for a while. But then, one day, it hit me: No one’s putting a gun to my head and telling me to use Google. A long time ago (before I read an article about Google in USA Weekend, which is like Parade for uncool newspapers), I used AltaVista and sometimes Dogpile. There are and have always been other search engines out there.

So I heard about a search engine called DuckDuckGo. It doesn’t keep records of your searches, and, having used it for a few months, I find the quality of the results to be about the same as Google’s. It’s more customizable than Google, too: There are various privacy-related settings, and you can customize the look and behavior of the search results. DuckDuckGo relies on various third-party services, including Bing and Yahoo for some web search results (although it does have its own crawler), Wikipedia and similar sites for definitions, Wolfram Alpha for calculations a la Google.

Unlike Google, with DuckDuckGo you can’t specifically search among images, blogs, maps, patents, recipes, and things like that. I’ve found that MapQuest Open replaces Google Maps pretty nicely, and it uses data from OpenStreetMap, which gives me warm fuzzies. The only thing I really miss about Google Maps is the public transportation data; OpenStreetMap only has it for a few cities. (If you lived in the Internet, you’d assume San Francisco was the capital of the world.)

Unrelated: The next time I’m in the market for a camera, I’m using Snapsort. You can compare just about any two cameras feature by feature and see which one is better in which category. I got my current camera last year and the previous one seven years ago; here’s how they stack up.

Be my guest

For the past couple of years, whenever I’ve traveled by myself or with my friends, I’ve used hospitality networks—namely, Passport Service and CouchSurfing—to score free lodging while meeting interesting people. And from the very beginning, I believed that opening your home to strangers was such a nice thing to do that I wanted to host others as soon as possible.

It turned out to be not very soon. While I was in college, I had a lot of roommates, usually several at the same time. A lot of them I didn’t know very well or at all, so I didn’t feel comfortable asking them if I could have a stranger come and sleep on the couch. So I figured I would be a host when I got my own place. But then I got my own place, and I didn’t feel ready because I didn’t know the area well enough. Finally, I decided I should stop making excuses, and I updated my CouchSurfing profile, setting my couch availability to “Yes.” I had bought a sofa bed for a reason, after all.

I got three requests in the first 24 hours. I accepted one from a German guy about my age who was living in Canada and would be coming down to Seattle for a few days. He arrived on Wednesday and left on Friday, so I couldn’t show him around during the day, but I suggested things for him to do that were only possible during working hours, and at night, my friends and I showed him the neighborhood and had dinner with him at some local restaurants. I don’t have much else to report other than that he was a great guest.

By having a guest over, I was able to think of some things I could get so that future guests would have a better experience. A few examples: pillows (I only had two, so we had to have one each) and towels (I had some thin ones that had seen better days). So this weekend, I went to the local Bed Bath & Beyond and got the fluffiest pillows and towels I could find. The new pillows are for me, but at least future guests can have two. And the towels are different colors, so it’ll be easier to tell mine and my guests’ apart.

I have another guest coming soon. This one’s just coming for a night, but maybe then I’ll see what else I might need so that other guests—including my friends, maybe?—can have a more comfortable stay.

Taking old photographs back to where they were taken: Dear Photograph.

Fantasy holidays

Recently, I asked readers to redesign US currency and got an overwhelming response. Now I pose the question: What to do about our holidays?

I’ve been thinking about this because today is Constitution Day (actually, according to Wikipedia, it falls on the weekday closest to September 17, so it was yesterday). Nobody really gives a rip about Constitution Day, which is a shame because maybe if they did, they would give a rip about the Constitution. It’s transitive!

For reference, here’s the list of federal holidays, i.e., the ones that pertain to federal employees. Schools and state offices follow state holidays, which are based on these but may have some differences, and your work may not give a rip about most of them at all. (What is it with people not giving a rip?? They are acting as if they have but one rip to give.)

• January 1: New Year’s Day
• Third Monday in January: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• January 20th every four years: Inauguration Day
• Third Monday in February: Washington’s Birthday (“Presidents’ Day”)
• Last Monday in May: Memorial Day
• July 4: Independence Day
• First Monday in September: Labor Day
• Second Monday in October: Columbus Day
• November 11: Veterans Day
• Fourth Thursday in November: Thanksgiving Day
• December 25: Christmas

For starters, I guess I would keep Inauguration Day in, if we’re going by the strict definition that federal holidays are only for federal employees. I would crack down on calling Washington’s Birthday “Presidents’ Day” because, according to my crazy logic, celebrating one branch of government over the others is not good (Supreme Court Day, anyone? I didn’t think so), but celebrating one dude over all the others is okay. I might have to mull this over a little further.

Having been exposed to Russian culture, I’ve noticed that they celebrate some international holidays that are ignored in the United States. One is International Women’s Day, March 8. I would make Women’s Day a national holiday until women and men are treated equally, whenever that may be. In Russia and many other countries, labor is celebrated on May 1. I would move Labor Day to that date and call it, I don’t know, May Day. (Congress designated May 1 as “Loyalty Day” in 1958. What a coincidence…)

The gay rights movement needs a holiday, so I would make Harvey Milk Day (May 22) a national holiday. That puts it close to Memorial Day, which doesn’t seem to be when it is for any particular reason, so I would move it to where Columbus Day is now. Everyone knows Columbus Day is racist. We should be ashamed of the fact that we’re here. (Joking, sort of…) So, Memorial Day would be in October, and heck, I’d combine Veterans Day with it too.

So, after acknowledging Constitution Day on September 17, that brings us to November. Election Day (the Tuesday after the first Monday in November) is not a holiday, and this needs to be fixed so people can actually make it to the polls. I would also move it to the middle of the week (the first Wednesday of November; election season is too long) to discourage people from using it to take a long weekend and not vote. And while I’m at it, I’d move Thanksgiving to the last Friday of November, shortening the Christmas season (which is also too long).

And then, Christmas. Supposedly, Christmas is a federal holiday for the sake of convenience since the majority of people wouldn’t show up for work anyway. Okay. Just as the date of Christmas was chosen so that it would supersede various pre-Christian winter festivals, I’d declare Science Day to be December 25. Oh yeah, and I’d also throw in Earth Day, April 22.

For the sake of completeness:

• January 1: New Year’s Day
• Third Monday in January: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• January 20th every four years: Inauguration Day
• Third Monday in February: Washington’s Birthday (not Presidents’ Day!)
• March 8: Women’s Day
• April 22: Earth Day
• May 1: May Day
• May 22: Harvey Milk Day
• July 4: Independence Day
• September 17: Constitution Day
• Second Monday in October: Veterans’/Memorial Day
• First Wednesday in November: Election Day
• Last Friday in November: Thanksgiving Day
• December 25: Science Day or something like that

So that’s my ideal calendar of holidays, and I bet it reveals a lot about me. I’m looking forward to what you have to say.

If you’ve ever gotten mad at a stranger online, watch this cartoon, which should remind you that the people on the other side of your computer are real and have feelings just like you. This would probably be especially good to show to kids who are using the Internet for the first time. (Via waxy.org)

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Real life isn’t like TV. Either that or real life is just playing a trick on me, but I don’t know anyone whose life is like this: You have two best friends, one of the opposite sex, the other of a different race, and every day after work (if you even go to work), you all meet at the bar or at your house, and you have wacky, hilarious adventures. No, I’m pretty sure no one has ever lived like that at all in the history of anything ever.

Having friends around all the time: what an attractive idea it is. Well, is it really? I guess it depends on the kind of person you are. Society tells us we need to go out and interact with other people if we’re to be worth anything. Maybe they don’t say it outright, but I hear it. I can’t always be like that. I need to be alone sometimes. Sometimes I just don’t want to do anything. I think that’s normal.

I’ve been told, and I guess I believe, that here in my new city, I’ll slowly accumulate a new group of friends. I can see it starting. I’ve done a few things with some guys who graduated from my program at the same time as I did. They all came here to work at Microsoft. Through them I met another guy who also graduated from the same department at the same time. He lives in my apartment complex. We see each other at least twice a week, I’d say, and do fun stuff. He’s the only person I see with any regularity. Well, there’s also my friend Mark, but it’s not quite convenient for us to meet up as often.

People have been asking me if I’ve made any friends at work. I haven’t. I mean, my co-workers are great (well, were great… I’ll have to explain that one later. Oh, screw it, I’ll explain it now. A few weeks ago, I was moved to a different team that needs the help more. All my co-workers are different, and I’m doing different stuff. My job on this team involves working with other teams for a few months at a time. It gives me a chance to get a better idea of the various things that the company does, but it doesn’t do much for my friend-making prospects.), but yeah, there’s that thing I just mentioned. I guess I’m down with the interns, but one of them has already gone back to school.

Work isn’t like school. It’s really easy to make friends in school. You and your classmates are all pretty much coming from the same place, generationally, educationally, and socioculturally speaking. Being at work, it’s like I could be a first grader and everyone else is in sixth or above. That’s what it feels like sometimes (and probably actually was in 1995). To be sure, everyone I’ve worked with has been cool (including my manager), but I wouldn’t want to risk my professional relationships by having an innocent trip to the bar turn into something that would make morning greetings awkward. Hey, It Could Happen.

So, I know some people who work for Microsoft. That’s a start. I’ve gone to a community blog meeting, and I’ve patrolled the neighborhood with old and pseudonymous people, but it’s not enough. I’ve started a mailing list at work for people who live in my neighborhood, but I don’t know what to talk about. (My “Hey, let’s go to a bar,” which I was sure would get others to come out of the woodwork, turned into “Well, okay, I don’t really know what a good place would be… Okay… Tonight? Maybe that’s too short notice… Sometime next week, maybe? Maybe not…?”) Oh yeah, and I don’t have any hobbies… I mean, I wouldn’t really want to meet anyone with the same hobbies as me.

I thought that if I lived downtown, I’d have a lot of fun because there would always be things to do. I actually knew it wouldn’t be that easy, though. I knew I was going to have to force myself to get out there before it could become a normal, fun thing, and I just hoped that that would actually be possible. What I didn’t realize, I guess, is that it’s easier to do these things if you already have a lot of friends.

Don’t think I don’t like the friends I have here. I definitely do, and without them, I’d probably be an emotional wreck or something. It’s just that I don’t yet have as many friends as I’m used to having. Maybe I need to meet my friends’ friends. Maybe I need to—(a pause as I try to gain the composure necessary to utter this word without puking)—network. I hate that word, especially when it comes to making friends, because it’s sleazy and artificial and it has the word “work” in it. Making friends should not be work, but here I am overanalyzing it. Or am I?

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I’ve been here for three months. I have a few friends. I feel like I could use some more, but I don’t know where to find them. I guess I do have to go out and look for them, although it seems hard. I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to make that a little easier.

I could have sworn I’ve posted this link already, but I guess not: Literally Unbelievable, a blog featuring stories from satirical news site The Onion as (mis)interpreted by dummies on Facebook. Warning: This may cause you to lose faith in humanity if you haven’t done so already.

Tea for one

The first time I had hot tea (outside of Chinese restaurants), I was with my friend Andy at his relatives’ house in suburban London. One afternoon, they switched on the electric kettle—the likes of which I had never seen before—and each of us soon had a mug of hot, leafy water. I put a some milk in mine, and then it tasted like milky, leafy water. I didn’t know how they could stand the stuff.

Later in my European travels, I met Kate. Since then, she’s visited me from Russia several times, and each time, she’s had lots of tea: Russians love it too. When she first asked me to make some for her, I didn’t even know how. That’s because I didn’t know a single person who drank it, and it’s not like people make tea on TV (otherwise it would be called Tea-V or something, I’m sure). When I visited her in Russia this past winter, her tea breaks became our tea breaks as I reluctantly picked the tea that tasted the least like tea (because it wasn’t technically a tea) and actually ended up kind of liking it.

So, I was in my apartment on an unseasonably cold Saturday six or eight weeks ago when I realized I could really go for a hot drink. That’s when I remembered the tea bags that were left over from Kate’s last visit. I got out a pot in which to boil water (because I didn’t have a kettle) and a glass (because I didn’t have a mug) and made myself a cup. It tasted pretty nasty, but at least it was hot. And that made my day a little better.

A few weeks later, I was at work, and once again, I felt like having a hot drink. It came down to coffee or tea. I try to avoid putting sugar in things, and I can’t stomach coffee without sugar, so I opted for tea. And then, a few days after that, I actually had the weird sensation of wanting to drink tea. I actually started liking the taste. I never thought this could happen to me, but it did.

Since then, I’ve been drinking two to four cups of tea every day at work. It’s great if I’m cold, or if I’m looking for a quick break, or if I just need a pick-me-up (inasmuch as tea actually picks anyone up). The kitchen at work has 17 kinds of tea, but I’ve mostly gravitated toward the black teas, in particular Bigelow English Teatime, Cinnamon Stick, and Constant Comment. I’ve also bought a box of each of those for drinking at home (having run out of the tea that was left over from Kate’s visit), as well as a kettle and some mugs. At home I sometimes drink it with milk, but there isn’t any at work, so I’ve learned to do without. (I’m not sure if half-and-half would be quite the same.)

So, there I am. I drink tea now. Have any of you ever fallen into a habit so unexpectedly? I’d like to hear I’m not the only one.

In the meantime, I’ll be thinking about the next time I get to see Kate. I imagine there will be lots of tea.

And now, here are The Best Obnoxious Responses to Misspellings on Facebook. Although they claim otherwise, teenagers apparently don’t have strong feelings about Hippocrates.

Vim and vigor

(Nerd Alert: Non-nerds can safely ignore this post.)

I’ve been around the Internet block long enough to know that programmers tend to care a great deal about what program they use to edit text—usually for writing programs, but potentially for anything. For decades now, they’ve been arguing over which family of text editors is better: vi or emacs.

When you use Notepad, or Word, or whatever the kids are using nowadays, you use the mouse for pretty much everything except when you’re typing. Programmers often work on the command line, either because they want to or because they have to, so everything that you could do with a mouse they have to do with the keyboard. Vi and emacs have so many features that this becomes a problem, and this is where the two classes of editors diverge.

GNU Emacs and other emacs-style editors give each operation a unique shortcut that’s often fairly involved, consisting of multiple keystrokes. In Vim and other vi-style editors, different operations may have the same shortcut—but never at the same time. Shortcuts have different meanings depending on the mode of operation you’re in. For example, in the default mode, “w” moves the cursor forward through whatever text you have open. Typing “:” will put you in command-line mode, where “w” saves the file. And then typing “i” puts you into insert mode, where “w” inserts the letter “w” into the file; i.e., you’re typing. The advantage of this (arguably) is that you spend less time entering commands and more time getting things done. (Plenty of emacs users believe otherwise; it just comes down to a matter of preference.)

So, what does all this have to do with me? I had always been content to use graphical editors like gedit or, if I really needed, a very simple text editor like nano with all of the major commands listed on the screen. But a lot of my friends used Vim on a semi-regular basis, and in my upper-level classes, I even saw people taking notes in it. And finally, I happened upon my friends’ hacking club meeting, where people were wowing everyone with all the cool tricks they could do in Vim. It was intriguing.

In November, halfway through a big project for my Artificial Intelligence class, I decided to learn Vim by using the vimtutor command that comes with it. After a few days, I was able to move the cursor around and edit text pretty easily, and I used Vim to finish the project. As cheesy as it sounds, I haven’t looked back.

Vim’s commands are really intuitive, so it’s easy to apply what you learn. The commands are like the building blocks of a language, as others have put it. And I find it very satisfying to change hundreds of lines of a file at once or move large blocks of text hither and thither without having to take my hands off the keyboard. I also like being able to edit different files side-by-side or even the same file side-by-side. There are really no limits to what you can do with Vim.

As if that weren’t enough, Vim is very configurable. There’s a ridiculous number of options and settings that can help you get things exactly the way you like them, boosting your productivity. I’ve put my .vimrc file online mainly so I can download it for use at work, but you’re welcome to look at it and take stuff from it or just make fun of whatever preferences I have set that you think are weird. (“Ewww, tabs??” That’s a holy war for another time.)

Everyone who’s a master at Vim thought it was weird at first but decided to give it a try anyway, just like I did. I won’t say I’ve mastered it, though; there are so many features that I can’t even remember all the ones I’ve heard of or even used. But over time, especially if I use Vim a lot for work, I could become super-productive. That would be pretty awesome.

If you use Linux, you probably have Vim installed. You can find out more about getting Vim at the official site. The Vim Tips Wiki is also helpful, and Vim’s own documentation is extensive. Because I’m crazy, I’ve shrunk the quick reference guide and the index of commands down to one page apiece (front and back) and printed them out. Now you can do the same if you don’t mind reading 3-point text!

Any other Vim users out there? Have any cool tips ‘n’ tricks to share? No holy wars, please!

Plain Text Offenders tries to shame websites that store their users’ passwords in plaintext. (Via waxy.org)

On the media

In real apartments—outside of college towns—many utilities are not automatically provided, so you have to have them set up (and pay for them) yourself if you want them. Of course, the first thing I thought of when moving in to my own place was Internet access.

I don’t know if I’m just missing something obvious, but there seems to be no easy way to find out which ISPs serve your area. (The National Broadband Map website was inaccessible while I was doing my research.) Based on the information I was able to cobble together, Comcast and Qwest (which I guess is becoming CenturyLink) were the two main choices.

Comcast was the ISP at my temporary apartment, and their service wasn’t terrible, but one time I was having a hard time sending about 4 GiB of my photos and videos to Kate by BitTorrent. Turns out Comcast prevents seeding of torrents whether the content is authorized by the copyright holder or not. That, along with the many, many bad things I’ve heard about them over the years (maybe they were blocking the National Broadband Map too…), drove me into the arms of Qwest.

Well, I won’t say I’m in love with Qwest, but their service has been consistently good. My download speed is nominally 12 Mbps but actually around 10.2 Mbps (exactly as expected—the fine print says that their service may be up to 15% slower than advertised). The upload speed is 768 Kbps, which I guess is relatively slow, but it’s been fine so far.

I’m not known for watching a lot of TV. If I had gone with Comcast, I might have gotten basic cable. But Qwest’s TV offerings consist of reselling DirecTV packages, and I opine that satellite TV blows, so I decided to get an antenna. At first I thought I was being cool and/or subversive by going the old-fashioned route, but I guess it’s more common than I thought. I still think it’s kind of cool, though.

I have this old TV that used to belong to my roommate, so I needed a digital-to-analog converter box. My dad happened to have one unopened in the original box, so he sent it to me. It’s made by Coby, which totally isn’t a rip-off of Sony. The thing works great, though. As for the antenna, I had to do a fair amount of research. Based on my situation—I’m in a high-rise in the middle of a city, with broadcast towers nearby but in different directions—I chose an omnidirectional, unamplified, indoor antenna.

Although it took a bit of searching, they do exist. It turns out that none other than RCA has a whole line of omnidirectional indoor antennas, so it was just a matter of picking out the best unamplified one. That turned out to be the ANT1600, which I ordered from Amazon (full disclosure: I work for Amazon [although the opinions expressed here are mine alone {and I kind of just wanted to brag about it (sorry)}]). Scroll down a bit on the Amazon page, and you’ll see a matrix of features for the whole product line.

Turns out I get a total of 26 channels over the air. Well, actually, 26 subchannels from 10 distinct stations. I’ll just call them channels because they’re all pretty distinct from one another. For example, the local ABC station broadcasts its regular ABC stuff on channel 4.1 and another whole channel called This TV on 4.2. I’m counting them as two here.

Minus the foreign-language, religious, infomercial-only, and duplicate channels (all of which I’ve set my converter box to exclude), I get 14 channels. They include affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, the CW, and Fox, as well as those stations’ secondary feeds (such as This TV) that play old movies, classic TV shows, weather forecasts, and obscure sports. Not bad, considering I only paid $34 one time for the antenna.

The antenna has a discreet, flat design that makes it easy to reorient. Despite the manufacturer’s claims, I do have to move it to get reception of some channels that are farther away or blocked by buildings, but not by too much. I have a direct line of sight to seven of the channels, and I believe I’ve found the sweet spot for getting six others. (Thirteen out of fourteen ain’t bad, especially when the fourteenth is the CW.) All of the broadcast towers are 1-2 miles away from me, except for that of KCPQ (Fox), which is 22 miles away.

So, what’s the effect of all this? I watch a lot more TV than I used to, which is to say, I watch some TV. I guess I want to get my money’s worth from my antenna. And besides, I don’t watch totally vapid stuff. I like Jeopardy!, some of the old movies, and PBS’s history and travel shows. I also watch the local news quite a bit. I’ve found it’s a good way to get acquainted with the area and to find out how to pronounce some of these crazy place names. (Snohomish? Issaquah? Puyallup?)

Speaking of which, today’s link: “If you watch Jeopardy backwards, it’s a show about three people paying alot [sic] of money to get bad answers on [sic] their stupid questions.”