Minh’s Notes
Under Construction
I am working diligently to put a nicer-looking look and feel to this website and a more streamlined system of managing it. Please bear with me; as I can only do this during my free time, this effort will take a long time.
Speaking of construction, here’s a prehistoric under construction page for my now-defunct LSP Online.
In the meantime… some old notes
Understanding Nerd-dom
Friday, June 13, 2003 — Yet again, I’ve followed a link to another of Paul Graham’s wonderful essays. This one’s about “nerds” and their lack of popularity.
Anyhow, he presents some really deep aspects of this whole society called a “high school” — whatever that is. I have to say that this is the first article of his that I can’t really relate to. One reason: I go to a Jesuit high school, where such social organization isn’t quite that rampant — or, at least, is much less obvious. Second: I don’t know if I would really classify myself as a nerd. Of course, the term “nerd” is just a tad-bit outdated. So why does this matter so much to me that I’m blogging about it? Hmm, DJ?
Well, really, I just liked this paragraph, and I agreed with it wholeheatedly:
“A lot of people seem to think it’s good for smart kids to be thrown together with ‘normal’ kids at this stage of their lives. Perhaps. But in at least some cases the reason the nerds don’t fit in actually is that everyone else is crazy. I remember sitting in the audience at a ‘pep rally’ at my high school, watching as the cheerleaders threw an effigy of an opposing player into the audience to be torn to pieces. I felt like an explorer witnessing some bizarre tribal ritual.”
Couldn’t’ve stated it better myself.
Perhaps I am a “nerd” after all. Hehe, must be so, since I spent so long creating the code that made this possible.
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Back
Friday, June 20, 2003 — Well, I’m back from a mission trip with my youth group (SMILE) to Delbarton, West Virginia. I met some great people there and had a very meaningful time. If I can get around to it later on, I’ll blog more about my experiences, but first, I’ve got a vacation coming up very soon.
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Back… again
Sunday, July 06, 2003 — I got back from my family’s two-week vacation to Destin and New Orleans yesterday afternoon. So I’d like to share a little taste of what I saw:
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We actually visited three beaches: Destin and Ft. Walton Beach in Florida, and Grand Isle East in Louisiana.
Well, seeing as we stayed in Ft. Walton Beach, we got to use some very nice beachfront… except that the debris left from recent storms was a little annoying.
Destin’s public beach was… well… like any public beach… decent, but not great. We spent all of ten minutes there.
Now, Grand Isle was interesting. We spent a few hours getting from New Orleans to the island, which was the southernmost town of Lafourche Parish, the southernmost parish of Louisiana. (The state has “parishes” instead of counties.) Either we timed well, or Tropical Storm Bill did, because we had to drive through plenty foot-deep water to get to the state park. I’ll sum it up right now: the drive was much more interesting than the “resort island.” We had planned to find a place to swim and fish at the park. Fishing was out of the question now, because the pier hadn’t even been repaired after Tropical Storm Lillie and Hurricane Isidore last year when it got pummelled once again by Bill. And swimming? The water was a deep brown, thanks to Bill, and the bony remains of so many fish were scattered around that we spent a mere two minutes (record low) at the beach, before we just packed up and left.
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Those of you driving or learning how to drive will know that the diagram to the right is a royal pain in the steering wheel. This is the mess that’s known as the intersection between Lake Forest Blvd. and I-510 Frontage Rd. W. in New Orleans East. I don’t think I even need to mention that what appears to be the continuation of Lake Forest Blvd. is actually a dead end, and that you actually need to drive through a dangerously narrow, two-way section of road to continue. Knowing that, you’d accidentally drive into the left turn lane, instead of the middle lane. Adding to that, the very narrow bottleneck is so old that the double-yellow line has faded completely, making it appear to be a one-way section of road. And you’re also supposed to treat this entire mess as a four-way stop.
Only in New Orleans.
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And I almost forgot to mention that drivers in New Orleans are some of the nastiest, most impatient in existence. (Yes, they even compare to New Yorkers.) You know how you’re permitted to make a right turn on red? Most drivers there expect you to make that turn immediately, as if there weren’t even an intersection there. Or else, you get a nice, loud, blunt honk from the behind. No, make that two.
And the police? Well, they’re a block away, using their sirens to get to the restroom more quickly.
So, other than that, we had a great time.
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Changes in the Atmosphere
Sunday, July 06, 2003 — During my very long blog-entry drought, a couple very important things happened in the Atmosphere:
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Version 1.0, Preview Release has been released. This version includes a greatly improved builder (now merely called “Adobe Atmosphere”) and plugin (called “Adobe Atmosphere Player”).
New features to the builder include a customizable world-building grid and easier JavaScript tools. New features to the plugin include hardware acceleration and many more scripting features. You can download both parts of Atmosphere at its website.
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A momentous effort by 20 Atmosphere world and avatar developers launched their final product Friday (July 4th). It is a collection of 27 avatars and ten worlds, all based on the Star Wars series. These avatars and worlds are, by far, the most innovative, interactive, detailed, and (of course) slowest I have ever witnessed. Due to the vacation, I wasn’t able to attend the day-long opening ceremonies, but (after a frustrating hour of technical difficulties) I was also able to experience the glory of this project this morning, thanks to help from Martin and Lace especially. You absolutely must download the new Atmosphere Player and go there (follow the link at the end of the page).
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Spam
Monday, July 07, 2003 — I’ve really been waiting for this: SPAM Sues Spam Blocker.
And Eric Meyer seems to have received spam from the future.
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Now Playing
Tuesday, July 08, 2003 — It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about what music I’m currently listening to. Last time, it was Debussy’s Clair de Lune. Now, a lot of you know I’m into Classical music, but I’m also into Oldies. (You could say that I’m stuck in the past.)
On the way to Grand Isle last week, Magic 101.9 happened to play Elton John’s Daniel. Now I’m hooked. Thanks to RealOne Player, I found the lyrics, a preview of the actual recording [RealMedia Streamed Audio], and the MIDI version of the song.
Update: And, no, I’m not going to make a peep about it over at DJ’s site, which hasn’t been touched or looked upon for, what?, three months now?
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Smoking Gun
Tuesday, July 08, 2003 — Eric Meyer:
“It isn’t that news outlets slant their reporting that bothers me. I just wish they’d be honest about it, so we could take the slant into account. In times past, newspapers were very open about their ideological leanings. Yes, many news outlets have a liberal bias, and others have a conservative bias. That’s fine. But don’t try to tell me you’re being fair or balanced when clearly neither is true, because frankly, it’s insulting.”
You may e-mail a comment to me, and I will publish it here as soon as I can.
Voting… the Microsoft way
Sunday, July 13, 2003 — According to the Associated Press, some Ohio voters will be allowed to cast their ballots online during the 2004 elections, as part of a growing experiment. There’s a catch, though:
“Voters using SERVE can register to vote and cast their ballots from any Microsoft Windows-based computer with Internet access.…” [emphasis mine]
I suppose that, after the DoJ settles with Microsoft on antitrust charges, it’s now alright for the government to expand Microsoft’s monopoly. Because this is still an experiment, the data-gatherers need to see how well this works in any browser, on any platform — to reason, of course — or it’ll probably infringe on the equal opportunity rights of a few people out there. And, as we’ve all seen in Fall 2000, a few people can make a big difference.
Also, whenever the topic of electronicizing the voting process comes up, the question of security comes up. The words “Microsoft” and “secure” rarely come in the same sentence these days, except from the PR people at Microsoft. There’s a reason for all that, so I’m glad that the reporter spends roughly half of the article quoting various people who take a fairly skeptical view of this problem.
Well, I’ve had my fair share of FUD for today.
And so it ends
Thursday, July 17, 2003 — Shed no tears for Netscape. True, the innovative company is now gone — and pretty much has been, for awhile now. But it rises again, much like a Phoenix, in the form of the Mozilla Foundation.
Update: I don’t know if you’re familiar with about:mozilla (if you’re using IE, don’t bother with the link; you’ll get the notorious Blue Screen of Doom). But Neil Deakin has the right idea about this whole situation. lol!
Sneeky Preeview
Saturday, July 19, 2003 — Okay, it’s official. Here’s a preview of that redesign I’ve been laboring on for months now. (Some of you have already seen it.)
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