It’s kind of embarassing, looking back at this previous post. It sounded like I was arriving somewhere, where in fact, those “big changes in my life” just kept rolling. I got married, got a dog, moved house, changed jobs (twice). Where I’ve landed is a place where I’ve seen my creative output trail off, enough to miss it, enough to want to return to it.

I’ll start off by describing the journey that my online presence has taken. I started this blog in 2004, publishing on a Blogger.com site called “A Logical Waste of Space,” which was shared with friend of mine. (His stuff is still there.)

Over time, the kinds of things that we wanted to write about diverged, and it made sense for me to split off. For archival purposes, I’ll keep that site around, even though I’m not too proud of some of the dumb stuff I used to write.

Then, I hosted this site on Squarespace for a while. I like the templates and WYSIWYG design tools that they provide, but felt like my data was trapped. I’m the type of person who likes to work in non-proprietary environments, so I started to look for alternatives.

The current iteration of this site is built using Jekyll, which is a geek’s dream. I’m writing this in a Markdown text file, and Jekyll takes care of compiling it into HTML. I have a DigitalOcean app pointed at a GitHub repo where these text files live, and it updates the site whenever I make changes. Sure, it takes some coding to customize the look of the site, but hey, I know how to do that stuff! It doesn’t even cost anything (unless I get an unexpected uptick in fame).

So, here I am again.

Some big changes in my life over the past few years, and fell out of the habit of blogging. This year, I have started to take my writing “career” more seriously, and I hope that it also results in my having more to say here.

Hello again!

A while ago, I posted an item about the word “Darwinism” and how I thought it had some bad connotations. This week, there was a column in the New York Times called “Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live” (free registration required). It has a similar theme but obviously more professionally written and better researched. In particular, one paragraph echoes some of the ideas in my original post.

Science has marched on. But evolution can seem uniquely stuck on its founder. We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism. “Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And “isms” (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.” It’s as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.

Needless to say, I agree. I have no further comment on the matter. I only wanted to bask in self-congratulation. Thank you.

Got the statement from my corporate credit card. It made me feel good.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS…

Of course I’d get fired and probably shot if I used it, but it’s nice to know it’s there in case of emergency. Emergency luxury yacht purchases, that is…

One of the effects of living in an apartment is that you spend a lot of time in the elevator. Of course, most of the time, you’re just in there by yourself, staring at the wall. Or, if there’s someone else in there with you, it’s an awkward experience at best. As George Carlin put it, “there’s nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the other guy.” But, once in a while, the elevator will be the site of a bizarre happenstance.

This morning, I was leaving to go to work. As I stood waiting for the elevator, I noticed that it was taking longer than usual to arrive at my floor. Oh well, I thought, it’s not like I’m in a hurry to get to work.

The elevator eventually arrived, and the door slid open. Standing in the middle of the elevator was a puppy. Just a puppy. With nobody else inside. He was a small little white dog, a terrier of some sort, and wearing a red knit sweater. Not able to help myself, I let out a high-pitched “Awwww…”

When I stepped into the elevator, I saw that the little guy (let’s call him “Buddy,” because what else do you call a dog you don’t know?) was feeling scared, because his limbs were all shaking. I didn’t know what to do, it’s not really wise to try to confront a frightened animal. So I ignored him. There’s nothing to do in an elevator except not look at the dog.

Pretty soon the elevator stopped at another floor. A lady came in with another dog. Apparently this woman knew Buddy, because she started to talk to him and bending down like she was going to pick him up. “Where’s your mommy? Where’s your mommy?” Buddy’s nervousness increased from this woman’s overexuberance, and increased further as the other dog started growling (obviously jealous of the attention that Buddy was receiving). I tried to remember whether I had ever had a rabies shot.

Fortunately, we reached the ground floor before the fur started flying. Buddy’s owner (“mommy”) was waiting. Apparently she and Buddy were about to come up the elevator when she ran into someone in the lobby and started to have a chat. Buddy had hopped into the elevator on his own before realizing that she had stayed behind. Poor Buddy. Poor, poor Buddy.

N.B.: I don’t normally post personal items on this blog, so this will be thinly disguised as a technology review article.

I’m moving into my own apartment soon, and I’m pretty excited about it. In preparation, I’ve been shopping for some furniture, as well as thinking about how I’m going to arrange the furniture in the limited space that I have. When I was at IKEA, I saw booths set up where people were using some custom software to design their furniture layouts, and I thought it would be a good idea to try to do some “interior design” of my apartment using some 3D software to better visualize the space.

I had heard good things about Google SketchUp, so I thought I would give that a shot. SketchUp is a pretty generic 3D modeling tool, but it seems like most people use it to create architectural designs. After watching some of the video tutorials on the site, and some experimentation with the interface, I was able to whip up something pretty quickly.

Voila:

This is the living room.

I’m considering maybe putting another shelf next to the TV for additional storage of books, DVDs, or whatever. On the other hand, it’s good to have some empty space so that it’s not too cluttered. There’s also a pretty large storage closet in the apartment, so anything that doesn’t need to always be conveniently available, I can just put in the closet.

Here’s the bedroom.

The bedroom seemed small to me when I first looked at the floorplan and at the empty apartment, but now I’ve seen it in 3D with the furniture models, it’s not so bad.

So in conclusion: Google SketchUp is pretty good. Pretty, pretty good. 9/10

My buddy made an interesting post about the perception of “straight acting” in the gay community. It just goes to show how every group has its own prejudices.

One thing I want to comment on, his comparison between “straight acting” and “banana”:

This is analogous to referring to an Asian person as a “banana” (which doesn’t seem to carry the same negative connotations).

This isn’t quite accurate. The term “banana” is not as neutral as my friend makes it out to be. Personally, I don’t take offense at being called a banana, but the whole concept of an Asian person acting white can be the cause of some friction. My banana status is ambiguous enough that sometimes I’ve been able to listen in at conversations between parents of more full-fledged bananas, and I can tell, it’s really something that they have strong feelings about. They sincerely wish that their kids were “more Chinese.” In my own family, there’s never been outright unhappiness about the issue, but I can occasionally sense an air of passive disapproval. (We don’t call it “banana” in Cantonese, there’s another term for it that I won’t even attempt a translation of… it’s some shit about bamboo or something.)

And I can only guess what FOBs think about bananas. I wouldn’t know, because I stay away from those people as much as I can…