Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer

The photo above is of my office this morning, not quite ready to be repainted. I've temporarily moved into Jeff's office for now, sharing his workspace. Many thanks to Scott Murray (a.k.a. "Frank") for helping move out my desk! As you can imagine, things are a little bit chaotic right now. If you haven't gotten any reply to your e-mail to me recently, I humbly beg your patience, thanks.

The FilKONtario Web site has been updated to include the fact that Michelle's the Special Author Guest next year. Woohoo, can't wait! As I mentioned before, her husband Tom (who was the one to introduce me to filk in the first place) says he'll likely be there as well.





Yesterday I challenged Blatherings readers to guess the purpose of the object above. Here are some of the guesses:

"Re: the office thingmy, I note in the zoomed picture that it has IBM embossed on it. It looks like it has something to do with rollers. Other than that, no idea. I was probably in grade school then... [ducks whatever Debbie throws] ;)" - Bryan Fullerton

"That whacky doofladget's a post-modern (WTHTM) Bat Signal!" - David Barker

"It's one of those late 1950s 'modern' design kitchen forks. The spoon for that set is even weirder." - Dave Weingart

"Going for the mundane answer I'd say it looks like a slightly oddball staple remover to me." - Lissa Allcock

"That little plastic item is hideously familiar in an I-can't-quite-remember sort of way. Something to do with 3480/3590 tape cartridges, I think... It's going to be niggling away in an irritating manner in the back of my mind until I remember, you know. ...or maybe it was to do with half-inch self-loading reel-to-reel computer tapes..." - Rick Hewett

"The mystery item is obviously half the casing of a taser. Note the fluted handgrip and one spine (the other spine would be on the other half, along with the control stud or whatever)." - Zander Nyrond

"I think I saw an IBM logo on it. I'm guessing it's a type of tool used to free jammed punchcards from card readers or keypunch machines. (We used flexible saws on ours.) Or it could be some type of shim that holds PC components apart from each other. Or it's the dreaded Ronco Fishkiller. Stick it in the fish's mouth, turn, pull, and you have yourself a perfectly filled fish." - Jim Poltrone

"It's a Klingon Dh'ebi, a concealable weapon for use by special operations teams.
Designed to look like a piece of incomprehensible office equipment, the plastic construction is immune to detection by all security scans, even those employing focused technobabblon beams. Whilst the double-bladed edge is lethal in the hands of a trained warrior.
As an added bonus, it's blunt so it hurts more..." - Phil Allcock

"It's a handy-dandy, never-go-anywhere-without-it, clip-on handle. That's right folks! With this little beauty, you'll always, literally, be able to get a handle on things. No pot holders in range? Clip! out come those brownies. Don't want to actually touch something filthy? Clip! Move it where you want it (and this baby is completely dishwasher safe!). Husband not cooperating? Clip! Dangle him out the window for a while. He'll come around! Don't wait! Act now! Operators are standing by! (Actual color, style, name, functionality, and any resemblance whatsoever with the included photo may vary.)" - Paul Kwinn

"It's a special tool for extracting jammed sample plates from a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Either that, or it's used to clean an espresso maker." - Michael Pereckas

The answer:

It's a tool for removing keys from a computer keyboard (even my technonerdboy husband Jeff didn't guess this), acquired during my first fulltime office job: programmer/analyst at the Toronto-Dominion Bank, Head Office. As far a I can recall, I used it only once: to switch keys around on my cubicle mate's keyboard as a joke (we both did it to each other, but I can't remember who came up with the idea first). The trick was to only switch two keys so that the change wasn't noticeable right away, prompting just a vague awareness for the first minutes of typing that something wasn't quite right. Ah, good times...

Other ancient tech artifacts discovered during my office purge:

- Flowchart template. Anyone out there still remember flowcharts? More significantly, how many of you still have a template or two kicking around somewhere?

- Special ruler for counting characters on the old-style computer printout.

November 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

happy anniversary, D&D!

Cora in Austria.


It looks like our children's concert at OVFF is going to be at Sunday from 12-12:30 pm, a half-hour joint concert with Ookla the Mok. Many thanks to Mary and Emily for coordinating the programming. It's been quite a few years since UT and Ookla have performed together, so this should be lots of fun. The Hockey Monkey Song is on the playlist, of course. Anyone with a child or who is still a child at heart is welcome. :-)

Saw "I (heart) Huckabees" last night with Parki. Entertaining movie with some clever writing; I just wish it had a stronger story. There were some very funny scenes, however, and I LOVED the interaction between Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman.



Intriguing sculpture in the Schloss.


So it's the 30th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons today. How many of you out there were or are into D&D and other roleplaying games, online or offline? I'm curious.

I found out about D&D through Games magazine when I was eleven, was SUPER-excited about the concept, ordered it as soon as it was available, then spent weeks waiting anxiously by the mailbox. When it finally arrived, I happily pored over the manual, created a campaign, did the maps, etc., then inflicted it on my family.

In the first session, when my family came across a candlelit cave with a creepy vampire coffin, my brother and sister got too scared (heck, I admit scaring myself as well) and my parents nixed the game permanently. And thus ended my first and only stint as Dungeonmaster. I didn't even think about trying to get my friends to play; they would think it too weird, I knew. My notes and maps ended up in the trash.

In high school, I heard that the War Games club was playing D&D and got all excited again, but unfortunately it didn't work out. I was the only girl, and it was clear that my presence was putting a crimp in their style. They kept apologizing whenever there was violence, for instance, and were WAY too polite. Augh. I never came back.



Vendor at farmer's market.


At university, I participated in several campaigns under DMs like Tom West (I had a wimpy magic user named Rowena), Andy (hobbit thief named Charity), Reid (Heroes game, can't remember my character), Mark Thompson (Xlaw campaign), John Chew (2nd edition of D&D, Oriental Adventures supplement). Jeff played D&D as well, though he and I were never in a campaign together. Jeff's games group played D&D last night in honour of the anniversary. Hey, my friend Harald just posted in Blatherchat:

"Xlaw is called Rolemaster now; I'm in two ongoing campaigns. :-)

We're having a D&D session tonight in honour of the anniversary. When I created my character I realized that I've never actually played a D&D mage before; I've always played in campaigns where the D&D magic system was replaced with Spell Law."

I no longer play D&D, but more because of a busy schedule than lack of interest. Creating a character usually takes a lot of effort, time and record-keeping, and then (at least for me) the sessions themselves need to be fairly frequent, else the immediacy and interest fade. Sometimes I wonder how we managed to find time for studying amidst all the gaming and socializing. :-)

But I loved the imaginative and storytelling element, the challenge of figuring out the rules and riddles of another world. Now I get my fix through reading and writing sf/fantasy instead. Very cool that my friend Reid plays D&D with his son and stepson from time to time.

I do still feel the occasional twinge of nostalgia, remembering those hours immersed in someone else's invented world with my companions, our fates sometimes hinged on a single roll of a 20-side die....

Happy Anniversary, D&D!

October 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

Flickr and a POLL: worst movie you've ever seen?

Craig's Toronto Filmfest schedule this week.


So up to yesterday, the worst movie I've ever seen was One on One ("There comes a time when love stops being a ball and starts being a woman"), starring Robby Benson. Yesterday, however, Real Life took the prize for me. Holy toledo. Craig and I would have walked out, except the film so bad it was entertaining. Read Craig's review here.

POLL: What was the worst movie YOU'VE ever seen?

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I recently started using Flickr, which Cory Doctorow refers to in his blog as "Ludicorp's amazing, witty, easy photo-sharing/community service". Cory's on Ludicorp's advisory board. However, I first heard about this free service from Liam O'Donnell (the children's author I met on Orkut), who also recomended the service.

I like Flickr's respect of user privacy. Quote from Cory's blog:

"Also noteworthy, flickr's best-of-breed terms-of-service and a privacy control-panel (reg required) that lets your friends assert your friendship without exposing your presence on the system to their friends." You can choose to hide your real name, e-mail address, even your photos, from anyone else; on Flickr, you can make photos completely private: viewable only to yourself, or to invited individuals.

Anyway, I've started posting some of my favourite photos on my photo page. Some will be public, some semi-private (viewable only to those on my Friends list).

Flickr is also handy for those wanting to share photos about a particular event or theme. You can do this either by adding certain keywords (Cory added "worldcon", for example), or forming a group. I've started up a Filking photo-sharing group, for sharing of pics and URLS of filk convention photos. Photos and discussions are not viewable by non-members; however, anyone can join. I figure this will help keep the membership open, but also keep the photo-viewing limited only to those interested in filking.




Craig, working on a column.

September 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

MovableType upgrade chaos

Sara at riding camp last week, where she won a first and
second prize ribbon in the final show.

Still sorting out my MovableType upgrade mess. I've restored My Life In A Nutshell, Dandelion Report FilkFAQ, The Dandelion Report, Blatherings. Next up: Inkygirl. If things look wonky, that's why. Thanks for your patience! Hey, check out the main page of the York Liberal, which features a great photo of my music partner, Allison! The main story is about Allison, Urban Tapestry and filk.

September 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments

gmail, solitude, eye surgery

Thanks to "tibicina" for the Gmail account! Jeff is massively jealous. :-) The mask cartoon you see in the upper left of this entry is one of the Livejournal user pictures I made for tibicina in appreciation.

Yes, I know about their email-scanning ad technology but frankly, so far I find their advertising *much* less intrusive than Yahoo's, and would actually prefer seeing ads that target my specific interests than general ads about things in which I have absolutely no interest. Here's what Gmail's help file says:

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"Google is NOT reading your mail. Privacy is an issue we take very seriously. Gmail is a technology-based program. Advertising and related information are shown using a completely automated process. Ads are selected for relevance and served by Google computers using the same contextual advertising technology that powers our AdSense program. This technology enables Google to effectively target dynamically changing content, such as email, or news stories.

Because the ads and Related Pages are matched to information that is of interest to you, we hope you'll find them relevant and useful."

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"Google does not and will never rent, sell or share information that personally identifies you for marketing purposes without your express permission. No email content or other personally identifiable information will be provided to advertisers.

Privacy is an issue we take very seriously. Only ads classified as Family-Safe are distributed through our content network and to your Gmail inbox. For example, Google would block certain ads from running next to an email about catastrophic news."

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The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus by Tim O'Reilly (founder and CEO of O'Reilly & Associates as well as an activist for Internet standards and for open source software) is an excellent article on the topic.

I've already had a few friends ask if I have any invites to share. Sadly, no. I believe that small numbers of invites are being offered to randomly chosen Gmail users. You can always check Gmailswap.com if you have something to offer in exchange. If you want to find out more about Gmail, here is an Extremetech.com review of the beta release.

So far, I really like the keyboard shortcuts, conversation threading, and (of course) the search flexibility. The contacts list needs major improvements. I will post a detailed report after I have had a chance to use it for a while.

On the advice of my optometrist, I went to see an eye specialist yesterday. Found out I need laser surgery to fix a couple of small holes in the retina of my left eye to avoid the risk of retinal detachment. My operation is scheduled for late August. I am under the impression that the operation is very common and nothing to worry about, but I would still appreciate hearing from any of you who have had the same operation about what the experience was like. The rational part of me knows there's no reason to be nervous. The irrational part keep flashing to that infamous torture/brainwashing scene in A Clockwork Orange. :-)

Went to see Hairspray at the Princess of Wales Theatre last night. I opted for the cheapest seat, which ended up to be in nosebleed territory and with a partially obstructed view, but still enjoyed this very fluffy but fun musical (i.e. I got my money's worth).

Some people may find it odd that I went to a show like this by myself. And while it's true that I often do prefer going with a friend, there are also times I enjoy doing things on my own. An acquaintance once told me that she would never want to be seen in a restaurant or movie theater by herself because she was afraid people would think she was a loser. I remember being surprised and more than a little disappointed in her, and my interest in pursuing a closer friendship with this person dwindled considerably.

I'm far more picky about how I spend my time than I was 20 years ago, when I was much more into the "hang out with as many people as possible as much of the time" idea of fun. Now I spend time with people because of who they are and because of how much I value their specific friendship, not because there's nothing better to do, or because I'm afraid of being alone. I would like to hope that the friends I spend time with feel the same way.

I find that knowing how to value my solitude makes me better appreciate and enjoy the time I spend with other people. :-)

My posts may be highly sporadic over the next couple weeks, but I will be back online mid-July.

June 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments