just to make sure it was firmly established that she is the coolest girlfriend in the world, lani got me the <a href=”http://www.fingerworks.com/ST_product.html”>Touchstream keyboard</a> that i had been yearning for.

the touchstream is a unique device. it is a combination of keyboard and mouse in one unit using something similar to a trackpad for the entire thing. there are no keys. the surface is totally flat and it uses a microprocessor to figure out where your fingers touch the surface and maps those to keypresses or mouse events.

there were basically three things that make it an attractive device: 1) it requires essentially no force to hit a key (since nothing is being depressed) which makes it very easy on your wrists. with practice, it is also potentially faster to type on than regular keyboards because your fingers don’t have to move as much. 2) you can use the mouse without moving your hands away from the keyboard; your keyboard and your mouse are always right below your fingers, you don’t lose any time switching between them. and 3) it also supports gestures. the onboard processor detects certain motions and converts them to multi-key sequences like Control-x or Alt-backspace.

i’ve only been using it for a few nights now and not that heavily (the docs recommend not using it more than an hour or two a day for the first few weeks because apparently, when you are learning to use a new interface device, you tend to tense up and that can lead to RSI). my impression so far has been largely positive.

first, the learning curve for being able to type on it is just as steep as you would imagine. without tactile feedback, you basically have to learn to touch type all over again. on a regular keyboard, i can probably type a nice moderate 40 words a minute without looking at the keyboard or making too many mistakes. after playing with the touchstream for a few days now, i could probably get about 30 wpm but with about a 30% error rate. i have to slow down considerably to eliminate mistakes. if you have any imperfections in your typing technique, the touchstream basically amplifies them into mistakes. eg, using the touchstream has made me notice that i have a bad habit of hitting the ‘c’ key with the ring finger of my left hand rather than my middle finger. similarly, i reach for the ‘p’ key with the ring finger of my left hand rather than using my pinky like i should. on a regular keyboard, i’m probably just barely hitting those keys. the touchstream is less forgiving and those and a dozen other bad habits i’ve learned to compensate for over the years just don’t fly. you also have to be really good about keeping your hands in the proper position hovering over the home row, just like typing instructors keep telling us is necessary for fast typing. all in all, using the touchstream is like having the ultimate fascist typing instructor scrutinizing your every keystroke and not letting you get away with anything. it’s slowing me down right now, but i can feel that if i keep at it, it will improve my typing overall.

for as much time as i spend on the computer, i’ve been pretty lucky with RSI. the only thing that really bothers me is using the mouse for long periods of time. because using a mouse hurts, i’ve gravitated away from GUIs and instead rely more on text and console applications. the bash commandline, emacs, ion, and mozilla/phoenix’s type ahead find are my bread and butter. once you get efficient with keyboard driven interfaces though, you start to become painfully aware of how inefficient most mouse driven interfaces are, especially the overhead of switching from mouse to keyboard and back all the time. the most appealing aspect of the touchstream to me when i was just drooling over pictures was that it would basically eliminate that overhead and make it possible for me to actually use the few mouse driven applications i need to deal with as efficiently as the key driven apps i’ve been spoiled on.

i was mistaken though. yes, having the keyboard and mouse both right there and having no overhead switching between mousing and typing has made a lot of applications easier and faster to use. but the killer feature of the touchstream turns out to be the <a href=”http://www.fingerworks.com/touchstream_gesture_guide.html”>gestures</a>. unfortunately, they are awful hard to describe. the multifinger gestures start with the shift key. since drift can be a big problem on a keyboard without tactile feedback, stretching your pinky out all the time to hit the shift key is not such a good idea. instead, on the touchstream, you can just drop all four fingertips of one hand on the home row and that acts as a shift. control and alt are similarly easy. dragging the four fingertips of your right hand up or down will scroll up or down like using a mousewheel. there are also very intuitive gestures for back and forward in web browsers, cut/paste, and most of the common emacs commands. my favorite though is probably the cursor control. if you slide two left hand fingertips around, it will move the cursor around through text like it was a mouse pointer and you were using a trackpad. it doesn’t sound very impressive but it only takes about 3 seconds of actually playing with it before you can’t understand how you ever used the inverted T arrow key pad before; having to hit different keys to make the cursor go in different directions seems downright primitive.

overall it has pretty much lived up to all my expectations. the only negative things i can think of to say about it are that it isn’t wireless so i can’t sit on my couch and use it with the projector, and it isn’t customizable or programmable; you change between a few different preconfigured modes (windows, linux, mac, photoshop, emacs modes, etc.) but you can’t enable or disable specific gestures or define your own new gestures.

the device even gets good marks for durable construction. there are no moving parts so hopefully nothing to wear out. if you spill your drink on it, you can just spray some windex on it and wipe it clean.

“Delta said Song airplanes will also have personal touch-screen monitors, pay-per-view, an MP3 audio library and in-seat Internet connections.”

<p>florida, anyone?</p> 

So Bush just laid out a very unimpressive State of the Union speech. It wasn’t the hodge podge of spending sprees that Clinton was so famous for, but there was little in there for me to cheer about.

<p>Tax cuts? Good. Social Security private accounts? Good. Everything else? Well, lets just say that the amount of money and power that the government is going to be wielding offends my limited government sensibilities.</p>

<p>But at least we had some good Bushisms, which included &#8220;Hitlerism&#8221;, &#8220;wonder-working power&#8221;, and I&#8217;ll never forget this quote:</p>

<p>&#8220;And many others have met a different fate. Let&#8217;s put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.&#8221; </p>

<p>If you didn&#8217;t see Bush put his arm on the podium, and do his best movie star tough guy impersonation, well you missed some high comedy. Not to mention the people I were with were taking a drink every time Bush said &#8220;nuculer.&#8221; Fun stuff.</p> 

so debbie, daphne, <a href=”http://so_i_was_thinking.blogspot.com/“>blair</a>, angela, lani, myself, and 9 random avenue d groupies all squeezed ourselves into a 15 person van and drove up to the land of ice and snow.

the drive up was pretty much hell. we left early in the morning, it was crowded and hot, and i was way in the back of the van where it bounced around like a rollercoaster. unsurprisingly, some motion sickness occurred.

once we actually got to dartmouth, things improved considerably. lani and i hung out in jP’s apartment with <a href=”http://bootypile.blogspot.com/“>mark</a> and <a href=”http://robot_andorid_fist_fight.blogspot.com/“>eric</a> drinking PBR while the band did their soundcheck.

jP <a href=”http://www.dartmouth.edu/~jconnoll/2003_01_26_archive.html#88103514”>describes the rest of the night</a> better than i could and includes pictures too. i just need to mention that hannover has some of the <a href=”http://www.ebas.com”>worst pizza</a> i’ve ever tried to consume.

the trip home was slightly less painful thanks to dramamine and the fact that we were in a hurry to get back so people could make their shifts.

this weekend’s downtime was brought to you by Microsoft SQL Server.

apparently a few machines in the server room were infected with <a href=”http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/25/1245206&mode=nested&tid=109”>the worm</a> and generated so much traffic that the network people had to reboot the router sometime on saturday. this, unfortunately, meant that i needed to refresh the network interface on the server for it to reconnect to the network. so it was stuck until i could come in this morning, log in to the console and type ‘ifup eth0’. once bitten, i now have a script that runs every hour and runs that if it can’t find the network so this shouldn’t be a problem again.

still, i’m sick and tired of being fucked by microsoft worms. i haven’t run any MS code on any of my machines for about 3 years now. i keep up to date on security patches on the stuff i do run. and still, every few months i have to deal with the fallout of Nimda, or Code Red, or Melissa, or whatever that week’s worm is.

ok, i guess it isn’t fair to blame microsoft. the vulnerability that this worm exploited was fixed in a patch from last june. if people would actually apply their security patches, these things pretty much wouldn’t happen.

As the only one of my friends who managed to get into the Life of Agony reunion concert a couple weeks ago at Irving Plaza, and as its still so fresh in my mind, I should record the experience for any who are interested.

<p>Im unsure how many thraxilites have <span class="caps">LOA</span>s legendary sounds in rotation. The band is distinguishable by the abdominally throataceaous singer Keith Caputo, and it was mostly due to his sound that <span class="caps">LOA</span> was isolated from others in the genre. He can carry a very  loud, powerful note with a certain grace, making the sound truly his own. Even at peak decibels, his voice never gets hoarse, it just gets loud. He also tends to carry the perfect pitch on perfect time, and, as almost all their songs revolve around an addictive chorus melody, this trait is important.  Content is also probably responsible for a lot of their fan base, which is one of the most loyal on earth.  It was mostly of Keiths shitty deal in life (abusive, drug-addict, divorced parents, both of whom are now dead of heroin), and of how he felt about it all. It all went into, and formed one of the first truly emotional hardcore bands. </p>

<p>River Runs Red (1993), their first release, is one of the best records ever made. I was initiated at 16 while playing Rifts with my good friend Tom Riley. He had the album on repeat for the duration we played, usually overnight. Eventually it was just always on, in my head, and I came to crave it. The cuts on this album were, and are, amazing. The voice certainly, but the riffs are also surely to blame for a fans instant obsession. It was, and embarrassingly enough, still is, nearly impossible not to air-drum/guitar, and sing along. <span class="caps">LOA</span> has caused me a vow of music-making in my next life. </p>

<p>Keith left the band in 1997, a couple months before I was to see them play up in Lewiston. When I learnt of the reunion show, I was in disbelief. When the tickets sold out in under 20 minutes, I wasnt surprised. When my chick said she could probably find a couple tickets, I was reminded who the greatest girlfriend in the world is. Once I told her for certain Id be back in America by the shows date, she scored us two <span class="caps">VIP</span> passes (getting those sorts of things is the only perk she has in working for a record label, which is otherwise heinous in every way).  We picked the tickets up in person from Alan Robert, <span class="caps">LOA</span>s bass player, who now works at McGathy  Productions in <span class="caps">NYC</span>, practically across the street from where Julie works. That little experience was incredibly weird for me</p>

<p>On to the show.</p>

<p>Irving plaza is great. Its small, with a balcony that horseshoes around a general-admittance-only floor in front of the stage. The <span class="caps">VIP</span> area was the entire right side of this balcony, providing a perfect view of the stage, and the fans. Once up there, we found ourselves in the presence of various record executives, members of the opening bands (whos performances we missed thanks to the snow in NH, and some bad fairy timing from Staten Island), and also, I was to learn, the families and friends of <span class="caps">LOA</span>.  There were other familiar faces up there too.  Some members of Type O-Negative, a band which has always had a close relationship with <span class="caps">LOA</span>  from their beginnings together in Brooklyn, where there. The weird, heavily pierced fat guy who interviews Type-O fans in their After Dark <span class="caps">DVD</span> was standing directly behind me. </p>

<p>While Julie went to find the bathroom and get a drink, I started talking to this hulkish, tattooed-to-death guy who was explaining to me how the atmosphere and buzz of the place took him back ten years when he used to see every <span class="caps">LOA</span> show in NY.  Although I never made it to a show when they were still Red, getting ready for them to take the stage did sort of play with my temporal registry. Tom and the all night Life of Agony sit-downs of my 9 years-ago youth seemed so right then and there. </p>

<p>While the last opening band (they were pretty boring, called Shinedown) was finishing, the singer addressed the crowd, and commented on what an honor it was to be sharing a stage with <span class="caps">LOA</span>, and he called River one of the best metal records of all time. I nodded in approval. At that mentioning, the crowd, which until then had been very tame, quiet, and pretty much just standing around, began chanting L-O-A. It shook the roof. The perfect unison of their voices gave me chills. I think Julie thought I was ridiculous, but I just clutched the railing and joined in.</p>

<p>The crowd settled down and the curtain dropped so the stage hands could change the set. From the angle I had, I could see a little of what was going on, and when I saw the huge, four skull banner drop down to background the stage, I was instantly pumped again. Here I was, about to watch one of my favorite bands, which for the last 6 years had an R.I.P. after their name, and it was with their home crowd in New York.  After  trying to explain to Julie how mystical it was for me, the curtain rose and the crowd was bathed in light reflected off the banner; always a chilling, beautiful band logo if ever there was one. </p>

<p>Then Keith appeared. He was wearing bellbottom-ish pants, a white tank top, a bright green silk scarf, and his hair was shoulder length. This was not the Keith I knew. But I had already known, through reading articles and interviews, that he had gone through a sort of transformation, which was the reason why he couldnt go on singing with the band back in 1997. He just wasnt angry any more. He certainly didnt look like the raging ball of angst he used to be.</p>

<p>There were no words at this time, I dont think-  maybe a hello again new york or something. Then the entire band sort of rocked back, and as I anticipated their landing, I squeezed the railing, and was still completely unprepared for what was to come.</p>

<p>The blast that erupted, in my exaggerating memory, practically knocked the front row off their feet.  In my mind now, I see the color red, tuned to a B, blasting from the amps, hitting everyone square in the face, and about 700 heads popping off of bodies. It was River Runs Red, the title song of their first album, and the hundreds of fans, packed like sardines onto the floor, went completely insane and, I, while practically jumping off the balcony in trance-like ecstasy, thought people were going to die.</p>

<p>A gigantic pit formed instantaneously, and the moshers were crashing, backfisting, and kicking each other indefatigably. After ragingly fast, pounding metal, the chorus of this song slows everything down and Keiths voice, in a completely band-branded melody sings: god help me.. the river runs red and I think Im. dyyyyyyy-yiiiin!,  during which all the moshers, pushers, shovers, yellers, screamers and innocent bystanders paused, quite dramatically, sometimes mid-punch, like some sort of pledge of allegiance, to sing along at the top of their lungs. </p>

<p>Throughout the set, Keith continually warned of safety, and brought up the death that occurred at one of their shows and then the band would explode into another, then another, and another of Rivers most aggressive and emotive songs, which the fans feasted on. Keiths body was shaking violently, twisting, turning and reacting to each pound of the bass, each power chord and bass-pedal thump. He may have looked like a hippy, but he was as much in this performance as he must have been 10 years ago.  Twice he was down on the floor, standing in the crowd, singing.</p>

<p>Everyone in attendance knew almost every word to every song. Most non-metal heads dont associate the genre with lyrics, just lots of yelling and screaming testosterone bullshit. But the vocals and their delivery was one of <span class="caps">LOA</span>s greatest traits, absolutely critical to their sound. After listening through a couple times, knowing the words or not, liking them or not, youre singing along, usually with all the air you have.</p>

<p>They broke the set up with songs from Ugly (1995) and Soul Searching Sun (1997), but <span class="caps">RRR</span> was what everyone was there to hear and see.</p>

<p>An unexpected highlight was how good Weeds, their one song to get radio play nationally, from Soul Searching Sun, sounded live. Keith also did an acoustic solo that sounded great.  Lost At  22 was strong. After about 90 minutes of seriously rocking out, my ears and body were a little tired, the band was getting a little worn out, and the fans were practically drooling and panting. Appropriately, it was time for things to wind down. They finished with three <span class="caps">RRR</span> tracks- Underground, My Eyes and then the last song of the night. Actually, I dont know how these things work, but judging by the absolute commitment of the performance, and the overwhelming enthusiasm of every single person in attendance, I cant imagine it was the last time the band will play together.</p>

<p>I was expecting something slow and symbolically conclusive to end things, like Three Companions. But in retro, I realize how weak that would have been for a band as aggressive and hard as Life Of Agony.  As soon as the fans heard the bassline to Through and Through, and even while tired as hell, the entire house jolted to life, and bodies were flying through the air as if it was the first number of the night. </p>

<p>It was the perfect end of ends.</p>

<p>After the performance, the band hugged, and, staring at the banner with their arms around each other, had their picture taken. They shared some words of thanks with the crowd, and thanked their families, who were standing around me. The drummer, Sal Abruscato, took the mic and said that it was the greatest day of his life. I have a feeling that it was probably the best show Ill ever see.</p>

<p>I picked up a River Runs Again 2003 hoody, which doesnt sit well in China with the huge skulls on the back- but I wear it with pride. The <span class="caps">VIP</span> pass will stay in my wallet until I come to my senses. And I eagerly await the CD/DVD release of the performance.</p> 

you may have noticed that you were redirected here.

i’ve got thraxil.net setup now with the new codebase on a temporary server. i’m redirecting thraxil.org and thraxil.com to thraxil.net for the time-being. things will be on thraxil.net for probably a week or two while i rebuild the machine that thraxil was once on and will be on again. once that’s rebuilt i’ll get the code set back up there and have thraxil.net redirect back to thraxil.org. that should make it about as painless as a server move really can be.

if you look closely, you may notice a few new things: 1) speed. everything’s running under mod_perl with a new, more aggressive caching strategy. 2) the urls of pages should be a little nicer. instead of things like ‘node.pl?nid=4203’, ‘diary.pl?user=matti’, and ‘keyword.pl?keyword=fnord’ we now have ‘/nodes/4203’, ‘/users/matti/diary’, ‘/keyword/fnord’ and similar urls for most of the site. this is all through the magic of apache’s mod_rewrite module. and finally 3) bugs. there seem to be some problems with how i’ve configured the module i’m using to cache database connections and i’m seeing some sporadic errors. if you get a server error, try reloading the page a few times; usually that will do it. there are probably other errors too since it’s a fairly new and untested codebase. if you encounter problems that don’t go away with a couple quick reloads, let me know.

also, if you’re into tweaking your diary templates, you’ll need to take a good look at things to figure out the changes in the site organization. i’m going to run a script through the existing templates and hopefully get them all in line.

Morning one and all!

<p>So this morning I called up <span class="caps">MCI</span> and tried to change a thing or two on my phone plan. The funny thing was, I was on a rotary phone. There seems to be no more rotary support with <span class="caps">MCI</span> any more as all of their support numbers are TouchTone Menu only with no Operator support. So I was wondering if anyone was aware of a decent schematic for a touchtone box, where all I would have to do is hold the box up to the reciever and push a button?</p>

<p>Also, I would like to say that I have been enjoy your sketches very much Anders.</p>

<p>One more question before I sign off. If I post in a journal entry a string of the word &#8216;Luke&#8217; or &#8216;Barnacle&#8217; or even a more common &#8216;a&#8217; that was oh I don&#8217;t know 15K in size, when Markov came upon that word, would it just post a string of them as it would be the most probable word to follow itself? Does that question make sense?</p>

<p>OK I will go now only to return next Monday.</p> 

so I’ve given my personal corner of the web a teeny overhaul. the organizaion is certainly different, and it sports a nice atari 2600-ish ketchup and mustard theme I cooked up in a rare burst of creativity.

<p>recent content is to follow, but it&#8217;s something new and unique to look at for now</p> 

yay! 3-day weekend!

lani came up to hang out. she immediately decided that my apartment was intolerably cold and gave me a nice kick in the pants to actually do something about it. my apartment generally stays about 20 degrees warmer than it is outside. so when it’s 10 degrees outside, it is still rather chilly inside. i’d pretty much gotten used to it though and just spend most of my time wearing sweaters and hiding under blankets.

lani assessed the situation and decided that my main problem was drafty windows. for some reason, i have a lot of windows. (in my bedroom i have 3 30” x 84” windows.) they all face right into brick walls so they don’t provide any kind of light or view; they just make my apartment drafty. so we went to the hardware store and got a bunch of weather stripping and some of those shrink wrap kits. then we spent the rest of the night balancing precariously fighting with giant sheets of plastic and double sided tape.

sure enough, when we looked closely, we discovered that two of my windows were actually open a crack way up at the top. another one in my bedroom didn’t have so much of “draft” as a “breeze” coming in. it was almost impossible to get the plastic up because it kept billowing out from the air currents. in the end though, nature was no match for large quantities of duct tape.

now with almost all the windows in my apartment sealed off, the difference is astounding. my lips and fingertips aren’t even blue anymore!

in between our home improving, we also managed to go out for vegan food, watch Eddie Izzard: Dressed to Kill, and <a href=”http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087909”>Phenomena</a>, which was a pretty cool old horror movie that didn’t really make too much sense but was visually very interesting.

earlier this evening, after lani left, i also managed to meet up with <a href=”http://www.miromi.org/“>mimi</a> for a brief spell while she’s back visiting.