John Borwick's blog

I’m not in horrible shape, but my body is slowly slipping into a looser form as I work at a desk all day and drive everywhere I have to go. So, Lauren and I are pretending to learn tennis, and I am teaching myself about calories.

The first day, I realized I consumed 720 calories, at once, from orange juice.

Now I have learned how bad chips are for you. One of those 1.5 oz bags has like 200 calories in it! What’s up with that!

Conversely, “smart dogs”–tofu hot dogs–only have 35 calories per dog. They are by … Continue Reading

Will Emigh just schooled me about “Alternate Reality Games” like ilovebees.com. Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are a way to make people involved in a storyline using codes, mixed media (e.g. payphone calls, email, web, postcards), and puzzles. You, singly or collaboratively–depending on the ARG, learn the plot as you unlock new clues and get more hints from the game.

Will is working on an ARG for his master’s degree, but I’m pretty sure I would be breaking some ARG rule if I posted a link.

ilovebees.com was built to help hype Halo 2.

Learning Python and Dvorak at the same time is really disconcerting. The entire medium in which I work and think is being changed.

Already, my Dvorak is getting to the point where I can type without thinking about it. It’s like getting comfortable enough in a foreign language that you’re no longer translating–you’re just talking.

Python, not so much. I have a long way to go to learn how modules like “curses” work, and there’s not much help along the way. There are nowhere near the resources available for Perl: just check out the Google directory for … Continue Reading

Ever since Lauren and I tried to learn the Dvorak keyboard in 2003, I have been thinking about its layout in the back of my mind. When I read something, sometimes I will “type out” the sentences in my mind.

Recently I decided that enough was enough, and I should give the Dvorak another shot. I’m happy to say that, perhaps because of my strange semi-subconscious “mind exercises” over the years, I remembered a lot of the keyboard.

It’s been somewhat of an issue at work because it’s difficult to type passwords that you’ve muscle-memorized, I have a much … Continue Reading

So, Python is cool. Its many modules, like MySQL-python, are not cool. Compared to CPAN they stink. (No offense, developers! You are doing your best–just there aren’t as many Python hackers as Perl hackers.)

To interface with MySQL in Python with the “MySQL-Python” module is to use the MySQL C API. W00t.

I toyed with Jython, Python totally implemented in Java. It was pretty awesome to run Java from Jython, like

from java import awt
class SpamListener(awt.event.ActionListener):
def actionPerformed(self,event):
if event.getActionCommand() == “Spam”:
… Continue Reading

I just finished The Tipping Point and Learning Python.

The Tipping Point was really interesting. It analyzes why some things get popular, and some things don’t. To an extent, the author just threw in lots of interesting studies. There were unifying ideas, however, and I would recommend it.

Learning Python told me that I could now put “Python” on my resume. It’s a VERY well-written book, that novice programmers and people with lots of experience can both process easily.

Word to the wise: don’t kill your (Mac OS X) “loginwindow” process. It kills your session, then respawns itself–sort of like you logged out and logged back in again really quickly.

A little while ago I instituted a cron script that sets entry_allow_comments=2 for entries older than 14 days. Well, until the site’s rebuilt, you people don’t know that you can’t comment until after you try to “post” the comment. I just added a script by “tima” that will rebuild the site every day: mt-rebuild.

I’ve written a few times about Chelsee’s in the blog, from before we had Bellsouth. I went back today to check it out; I felt a little guilty about not going more often because it’s so close.

What’s gotten better since 2003/2004: the espresso is drinkable now. Their hours are lots longer. The giant TV was on mute.

What’s not gotten better: their Internet goes down regularly. They do not play any music. They have noisy “toys” (e.g. dancing easter rabbit that sings at ca. 90db) that make everyone stare. There is … Continue Reading

Ur-: primitive, the first. For example, “Ur-Hamlet”. It’s like saying “archetypal.”

au pair (via google): a young foreigner who lives with a family in return for doing light housework. This was not in the OED–or rather, I couldn’t find it under “au” or “pair” in the OED.