As a kid I used to read the encyclopedia (yes, my nerdiness goes way back), so Wikipedia is truly a joy. Not only can I read it, I can also improve it. Most of my edits have been in subjects I initially know little about but have some strange interest in. I have an unusual capacity …
Category Archives: Life
My life in bite-sized nuggets
As usual, I haven’t blogged as much as I’d like, but I have been regularly uploading my photos, so my Flickr photostream is a better representation of my life than my blog. Here’s what I’ve done since my trip to Orlando: Trip to Taiwan during Chinese New Year. It was great seeing a lot of …
Excuse the mess…
My blog is under renovation! I’m finally starting to make my blog look more like the rest of my web site, by mucking with WordPress themes. Since I don’t feel like installing WordPress on my own machine, all of my experimentation will happen on my blog live. Hopefully it won’t cause much of a problem.
Songs on my mind over the past month
I actually don’t mind having these songs stuck in my head, which is a good thing. Last month it was “Rhiannon” (video 1, video 2) and “Gypsy” (video 1, video 2) by Fleetwood Mac. Triggered by listening to The Dance CD over and over again during my trip to Rochester. Afterwards came “Sister Golden Hair” …
Done with taxes
Our family has been using TurboTax to prepare taxes for years now, but I’d blanched at the thought of giving Intuit even more of my money for electronically filing my tax forms. This year I decided to give e-filing a shot. The verdict: dang, that was convenient. No printing out 50 pages of tax forms, making sure …
This blog has moved… one more time
This blog has already moved twice before, but I expect this move will be the last. I’m posting all new entries right here: http://blog.jameslin.name I bet you didn’t realize .name existed, eh? That’s right, I have my very own domain, registered with directNIC and hosted by Dreamhost. I’m still using WordPress software for my blog …
Visiting Orlando
Last week I was in Orlando for a customer conference, Lotusphere. For 3½ days straight I manned a demo station in the Innovation Lab on one of my research projects, which was worthwhile but tiring. But there was a payoff: the conference party was at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and Jeff and I spent Thursday afternoon …
The streak is broken
Last weekend, I went to see the Cal-Washington basketball game at Berkeley. Before that, I had seen four sporting events: a Yankees game, a Mets game, an A’s game, and Cal at Stanford basketball. In every case, the home team lost, and only in one case did I want the home team to loseWeight Exercise. …
A fun dream
Normally I don’t remember my dreams, but this one was intense. I got on a subway car with a few other friends, and the sign that had the route number also said “no conductor.” I wondered why. Then as the subway started, it suddenly plunged down a huge ramp and then did corkscrews. This part …
Balancing privacy concerns in my photos
I’ve struggled with finding the right balance of descriptiveness and privacy in my Flickr photos account. Up to now, I’ve almost completely avoided displaying people’s names, because I think it’s a little creepy to be able to go to someone’s photos, and search for someone else to see what they’ve been doing. On the other …