- A calm, unremarkable year with some ups and some downs, slowly growing restless.
- I got fibre-to-the-node DSL installed in early January, bringing an end to half a year of EDGE-only internet access at home. When the promotional price was about to run out in May, I instead got tetherable 3G, which got me through the rest of year. It’s workable, except I haven’t put in the effort to bridge my house router to this connection, and so I have two networks at home, one with my file server, one with the internet. Not a good setup.
- Speaking of tetherable 3G, that’s Android, and I got reasonably-recent cellular technology in a 7″ Galaxy Tab to start off and then a Nexus One. I’m still not sure how I feel about the form-factor of the wide touchscreen candybar Nexus One, but the software is by most standards a huge upgrade over my BBOS 4.5 Pearl.
- Music heavy year kicked off by bingeing on The Naked And Famous after discovering them in late April and seeing them three times within six months. Continued the Toronto music tradition by bingeing on The Rural Alberta Advantage and ohbijou starting in October, seeing each twice, and to a lesser degree Do Make Say Think, Owen Pallett, and Torq Campbell’s side projects. Paper Bag Records’ summer sampler brought me the single most-listened and probably catchiest song of the year, Johan Agebjörn’s
Watch The World Go By
. Further shows by Stars twice on back-to-back days, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Mogwai, Junior Boys, and M83, among others. - Not a photography-heavy year, as I continue to fail at timely Flickr; not a travel-heavy year, although I did visit Montreal in February (cold), Ottawa during Canada Day (busy), and Manhattan in August (warm).
- What if I’m only satisfied when I’m at home, sitting in a city that’ll never let me go?
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
2011
Saturday, December 31st, 2011Ten
Thursday, May 5th, 2011Happy ten years to us.
How to clone Jobmine in a year
Sunday, February 27th, 2011So the replacement of Jobmine, known under a number of names, all of them too horrible to reproduce on an esteemed blog like this one, has been scrapped. Students disapproved and several resolved to write their own, one uttering the words “startup idea.”
Of ways to annoy me, proposing a startup as a part of solution for a problem you don’t understand well is near the top of the list.
Similar sentiments have been expressed previously during the project’s lifecycle; when first announced, several declared they could get it done within a four-month co-op term. This week, I was asked to explain why a Jobmine replacement is unrealistic for a year’s work. I had some procrastinating to do, so I jumped on the opportunity. (The title of this post is inspired by How to clone Delicious in 48 hours, which was written in response to similar reactions in December 2010.)
For those not in the loop, Jobmine is the online system supporting the co-operative education program at the University of Waterloo (UW hereafter). UW claims, with some justification, to operate the largest post-secondary co-op program in the world.
Jobmine was first introduced in 2004 and although an improvement over the previous incarnations, is generally agreed to be a horrible, horrible web application. Much of the blame lies with the horrible PeopleSoft software on which Jobmine was based hacked together. PeopleSoft promptly got itself acquired by Oracle next year. The horribleness was too much even for UW to handle and soon there were plans to do it all over again, but ourselves and better.
Disclosure: I was part of the project in the heady days of 2007 and early 2008. In 2007 I was prototyping and exploring and in 2008 I worked on a part deep inside the designed system. I haven’t been in close contact with the team since, and I have no insider information on the cancellation. I’m almost certain none of the prototype code is still active and although I’m not sure it wouldn’t surprise me if the latter code got axed or at least heavily reorganized since. That being said, I’d like to think that with the experience I understand what Jobmine actually is a bit better than the average student.
Here’s a brief guide to what a Jobmine replacement actually needs to do. Unless otherwise noted, this is the bare minimum to merely replace Jobmine, not improving on it much, presumably excluding the UI. (more…)
2010
Friday, December 31st, 2010- I went to school for last four months, and then I graduated, and then I had a failing nightmare.
- I bought a DSLR, and then I took some pictures.
- I went to Iceland for two weeks, and then I got a lifetime of memories and a need to come back.
- I moved to Toronto full-time, and then I lived half a year without wired internet at home.
- I meant to write about all of this, and then I didn’t.
- A new Hot Chip album came out. Then a new Muchy album came out. Then a new Crystal Castles album came out. Then a new Broken Social Scene album came out. Then a new Underworld album came out. It’s been a good year.
- I saw the xx and Hot Chip live. I saw Stars live again. And I saw Broken Social Scene live again.
- To był dobry rok, bez rocznic i postanowień, bez wspomnień i rozczarowań.
The Complete and Unabridged Blackberry Custom Dictionary
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010I have had my Blackberry Pearl since September 2008. A Pearl user lives and dies by their dictionary; the half-QWERTY keyboard makes typing words not present in either the built-in dictionary or the learned custom dictionary a significant pain.
The earliest entries in this dictionary date from the device’s last software reflash, which was no earlier than January 2009. Since then, I have gone through the list and trimmed it occasionally. Most of the words removed were misspellings. As the Blackberry OS 4.5 does not have a Polish dictionary, I don’t normally use it for communicating in Polish, and I remove Polish words I feel I will never use again. This is my complete and unabridged* custom dictionary as of September 19, 2010.
- #firstworldproblems
- 1a
- 52′s
- accidental’s
- adbusters
- africa
- ageist
- ago’s
- aha
- ahoy
- aint
- Aint
- Alcatraz
- alright
- alvie
- americano
- Americano
- amirite
- amoled
- amorkans
- amputee
- android
- angoss
- ap
- apple’s
- apps
- april
- arcestra
- arduino
- Armini
- armoured
- artsies
- artsy
- ascii
- asobi
- Asobi
- aspie
- ass
- aurora
- autocompletes
- autolux
- avant
- avp
- aww
- azerbaijan
- azn
- bah
- barby
- barclays
- barista
- basc
- basia
- bathurst
- bbq
- bbs
- bbva
- bbw
- bering
- beverley
- bex’s
- bff
- bhm
- birrer
- bitching
- bittorrent
- biutiful
- bixi
- biznazz
- blarg
- blase
- blogto
- bloor
- bluur
- bmh
- bobbie’s
- bombardier
- bono
- bosko
- boyz
- branson
- brb
- bronfman
- brunswick
- bs
- bsa
- btw
- bulat
- Bulat
- bullshit
- bumfuck
- bunching
- burrito
- buskerfest
- busywork
- bux
- buy
- byob
- ca
- Calgary
- california
- caltrain
- canadian
- cantonese
- Cantonese
- Caribana
- carleton
- carpooling
- catharines
- cc
- ccs
- cecca
- cecs
- CECS
- centric
- cera
- Cera
- cfa
- CFA
- charset
- chcesz
- cheques
- cheung
- chillax
- chinese
- clamshells
- clive
- cm
- cnd
- cne
- coat’s
- cobol
- coed
- colour
- comfy
- commenters
- commie
- congrats
- contraire
- corktown
- couture
- Couture
- croquet
- cs
- CS
- ctv
- cyprus
- czechs
- czesc
- dagenham
- danforth
- Danforth
- darwinian
- db
- DB
- dd
- declasse
- deedy
- deemphasized
- delicje
- Deutsche
- dev
- dia
- distillery
- distracting
- dnd
- doable
- dobry
- doherty
- dolce
- dossier
- dov
- Dov
- dt
- dufferin
- duh
- dun
- dundas
- dunno
- dzien
- eatons
- eduroam
- eeeemo
- eg
- Eglinton
- emailed
- embraer
- emiliana
- encoding
- engsoc
- eom
- er
- estonian
- etobicoke
- euclid
- Euclid
- eurocent
- european
- expresspost
- eyjafjallajokull
- fab
- fab’s
- fanboy
- fancyish
- fanfic
- faved
- favourites
- fb
- fedbus
- ferdydurke
- Ferdydurke
- fests
- fff
- fffuuu
- fg
- FG
- fhl
- fido
- fiera
- fifo
- filenames
- fillmore
- finnance
- firstworldproblems
- fixie
- flimsiest
- fml
- fob
- foodie
- forrealz
- francisco
- frapp
- freaking
- free
- friday
- fridge
- friggin
- frigging
- ft
- fuck
- fucked
- fucking
- fucks
- fwiw
- fydp
- fyl
- gamers
- Gamers
- gelato
- genitive
- gentrifying
- gentsia
- germaphobe
- germaphobes
- gerrard
- gg
- gifs
- gilead
- gj
- gladstone
- Gladstone
- gladwell
- gmail
- gn
- goertz
- goliath
- Gombrowicz
- goth
- gotta
- govt
- gowalla
- grainge
- grillo
- grimsby
- gs
- gsm
- GSM
- gsmarena
- gtfo’d
- guelph
- gulag
- guu
- Guu
- GUU
- haha
- halfie
- hangings
- harbord
- hashtags
- hazelnuty
- headached
- headdesky
- heartthrob
- heh
- hella
- hellenic
- hf
- hibernia
- hipper
- hipster
- Hipster
- hipsters
- hitman
- hk
- HK
- hn
- hoodie
- hookahs
- hoorj
- hr
- hrish
- hsbc
- hspa
- HSPA
- Hummer
- hura
- huron
- Huron
- i’ll
- i’m
- ibook
- iceland
- icelanders
- idiocies
- idk
- iglesias
- iirc
- IIRC
- imo
- indie
- instituting
- internets
- iowa
- ipa
- IPA
- ipad
- iphone
- ips
- irl
- ish
- italy
- itunes
- Ixpress
- jarek
- jarekp
- jaymis
- jenny
- jesusprof
- jez
- jk
- jnessap
- jobmine
- joke’s
- jomsie’s
- jose
- juno
- jw
- kanata
- kanetix
- katz
- kay
- kazakhstan
- Kazakhstan
- kbaied
- kenny
- kitchener
- kk
- klassy
- knaan~
- koenigsegg
- krugman
- kto
- kurma
- kwan
- Kwan
- lacoste
- laurier
- Laurier
- lawls
- layter
- lcbo
- lekarz
- lenos
- lenz
- Lenz
- lexus
- lib
- libs
- licensing
- liek
- lightbox
- linda
- lindt
- linux
- linuxcaffe
- liveblog
- lolol
- Lolol
- lololololol
- lolterview
- lolz
- longish
- lookalike
- looong
- lunix
- luv
- lx-5
- macchiato
- mah
- makeout
- markup
- masa
- maserati
- matlab
- maui
- mayjames
- mb
- MB
- mccaul
- mcnuggets
- me
- meh
- mels
- menaji
- merly
- metre
- mhm
- mia
- micalief
- microswitch
- midterm
- misformatted
- misplacing
- mississauga
- mkay
- mlia
- mobiroo
- mochas
- moldava
- monetize
- moneyz
- morag
- motherfucker
- mpass
- mr
- mre
- msn
- mulan
- munro
- myspace
- nabokov
- nah
- najs
- natch
- neighbours
- nemo
- nerdy
- netwren
- newsfeed
- nfc
- nie
- nigiri
- nki
- nm
- nn
- nokia
- nomming
- noob
- Noob
- noobly
- noobs
- noonish
- notl
- np
- ntfs
- nubly
- nuff
- nuit
- nutella
- nvm
- nyc
- nyt
- NYT
- obnoxiousness
- och
- OCH
- ofe
- offline
- ofina
- oic
- oicky
- omg
- OMG
- onoz
- ontario
- ontario’s
- oooh
- ooooh
- openbeak
- orangatame
- OS
- ottawa
- Ottawa
- owen
- panini
- paperz
- parkdale
- passat
- pasteur
- Pasteur
- paul
- pay
- paycheque
- pd
- pda
- pebkac
- pedophile
- perl
- Perl
- phd
- phds
- php
- Php
- pics
- pilsner
- pincus
- piorkowski
- pirating
- pismo
- pix
- plx
- plz
- pmall
- polski
- Polski
- poserdom
- postings
- poutine
- poutini’s
- profs
- pronouncable
- psci
- pupusas
- qa
- quebecois
- qviri
- RA
- rajesh
- ratatat
- RBC
- rbccm
- rch
- RCH
- rcmp
- realz
- reboot
- reflash
- repartee
- repaste
- resetting
- rfd
- ricoh
- riesling
- rihanna
- riiiight
- ripoff
- rl
- rly
- rn
- roffles
- rofl
- rom
- ROM
- roncey
- rong
- roomba
- rss
- rumours
- ryerson
- samba
- sasha
- Sasha
- sauga’s
- sbucks
- sbux
- sbuxing
- schadenfreude
- schnapps
- scifi
- scotia
- scott
- secondcup
- sedaris
- Sedaris
- segue
- seksu
- Seksu
- sez
- sherbourne
- shhhh
- shilling
- shit
- shitall
- shits
- shitty
- showbiz
- shteyngart
- siebel
- sketchier
- skype’s
- slc
- slr
- SLR
- snd
- snippy
- sociale
- soho
- Solzhenitsyn
- soonish
- sorite
- soundsystem
- soviet
- spadina
- spcom
- sql
- srs
- srsly
- sry
- starbucks
- starcraft
- stata
- staten
- stats
- steeles
- stinky
- stoners
- strachan
- sublets
- suburbanites
- suicide
- sukho
- sunburnt
- sup
- superhero
- sustainability
- sux
- suzie
- sysadmin
- tacs
- takethegrt
- takk
- taleo
- tao
- tbbt
- tbh
- tbilisi
- tegan
- tempura
- tenses
- tesh
- tetley’s
- that’d
- thinkpad
- thnx
- thomson
- ths
- tia
- ticketmaster
- tiff
- timeframes
- tinyurl
- tipsy
- tix
- tldr
- tmr
- tofu
- tomatoey
- toronto
- torontonian
- torrenting
- torrini
- torx
- tp
- tpl
- transliteration
- trendier
- tshirt
- tshirts
- tsk
- tt
- ttc
- TTC
- ttcu
- ttd
- tufd
- tuts
- tweet
- twinnings
- tyvm
- ubuntu
- uhhhhh
- unawesome
- unhipster
- unmotivated
- unscaredness
- uploadings
- url
- usf
- uw’s
- uwaterloo
- uWaterloo
- van
- vancouver
- vespa
- vi
- voip
- von
- voteto
- vta
- warszawa
- watcard
- waterloo
- wats
- wb
- weatherlolz
- webpage
- wednesdays
- weeabooing
- weeaboos
- welland
- whatsherface
- whoa
- why’s
- wifi
- wikipedia
- wiktionary
- workopolics
- wsj
- wtf
- wunderkind
- wut
- xenophobes
- yall
- yao
- yay
- yessss
- yeye
- ymmv
- yonge
- Yonge
- yoo
- york
- yorkdale
- youtube
- yvr
- zakrecona
- zzz
- ZZZ
* Except unintentional misspellings where correct form is obvious. One entry — the username part of an email address, not otherwise a word — was removed to protect the innocent. Not all words typed are added to the custom dictionary by the Blackberry OS.