/dev/null/kevin

For Earth Day, I am retiring my old (and dangerous) Sun Blade 2000.  I'm replacing it with a new Ultra 24.  Granted, it's not up the drool-worth specs of Rama's system, but it will do for now.  I expect my office to be much cooler now (and quieter).

This will also allow me to use the latest xVM Server hypervisor technology, which is good because I'm on the xVM Ops Center team and I need to get some of this stuff to work. 

Dilbert.com was relaunched last week and it's terrible.  The pointy-haired boss has won.  They tried for Web 2.0 but ended up with Web 2.Oh No!

Now that I've gotten the one-liners out of the way, here are the specifics.  With a plethora of new features that might have sounded good on paper, the new site looks like a MySpace page with hemorrhoids.  It's loud, obnoxious, filled with Flash 9, and causes an itching sensation.  Tim Bray said it best:

Tim's not the only one who doesn't like the new site.   Venky also doesn't like the new site, but the most negative comments come from Dilbert's own readers: 

Today's Sunday strip was particularly bad as the Flash application didn't even display the entire strip all at once.  I needed to page through the Sunday strip to see it all.  Whatever humor there was in the strip was lost as I had to deal with the navigation.  I'm lucky that the Flash even worked for me since many of the comments show that Flash 9 doesn't work on many platforms, including Solaris and some PDAs.

Perhaps Scott Adams needs to buy his own copy of How To Make Webcomics from the guys at halfpixel.com [1 2 3 4] who really know how to make a web site for comics.

Update [04/25/2008]: Scott Adams has revealed the "secret" back door page with just the comic.

It's currently 84 degrees F here in Silicon Valley (29 C) and the shorts are coming out, and so are the white legs.  This seems to be a popular trend on twitter, and I am no exception.

Here is a screen capture, as that search will probably change over time.  It's amazing how self-deprecating the twitter community is. 

Long, long, ago, I used to play roller hockey with Joe, Rama and Will.  We played in the parking lots between Sun's Mountain View buildings (now all Google buildings).  Eventually I moved to ice hockey and hadn't touched the roller gear in years.  This week my wife's cousin needed a sub on his roller hockey team.  Not wanting to break my ankle trying to do an ice stop, I laced up the old pair and headed down the street with my dog running along side.  I took a few test turns, and then *snap* - I was on my butt.  Fortunately, it was not my ankle, but the skate itself.  The entire bottom half of the skate just broke off.  It was a cheap, plastic boot, not leather, and I guess we now know the lifespan of a cheap roller hockey skate.

The good news is I had two pairs of skates (outdoors and indoors) so I was still able to play since the game was indoors.

Flickr launched its new video service today (Tuesday 08 April).  For me this is awesome because I already use flickr for my photos.  Like most people, my digital camera also takes decent quality videos and it is very nice to have them in the same stream as my photos.

There are two features that really make flickr better for personal video clips over YouTube.

1. Better image quality - See below.
   


2. Can download the original - I liked Google Video for this same reason.  It's very valuable to have off-site backups of your photos and videos so now I have both in one place.
   

Of course, with only a 90 second limit, YouTube, and other services, are still better for longer and professional vids.

Compare the quality of the same video uploaded to both YouTube and Flickr.

YouTube:

Flickr Video:

Update: Found one strike against Flickr: The embedded video doesn't appear/play in Google Reader. If you don't see the Flickr video window try here.

Update 2: According to Kellan of Flickr, this is a known problem.  You can work around the Google Reader problem by subscribing using the RSS feed and not the Atom feed. 

Minute Maid Light Orange Juice has less than 50% of the calories of regular Minute Maid Orange Juice.  Have you ever wondered how they accomplish this amazing feat?  (ok, just play along)

I have here the super secret formula for creating Light Orange Juice Drink:

+ =

That's 42% OJ to 58% water.

But remember to charge the same price as regular orange juice.  That's the real secret.

I lost a good friend yesterday.  He lost his battle with cancer.  It was surprisingly swift.  I didn't want to post anything yesterday since it was April Fool's Day, which is a really bad day to deliver bad news.

John and I have played drums together for over 20 years now.  We both went to the same college (UC Davis) and were in the marching band.  I was still in college when he recruited me into an offshoot band called the California Repercussions.  We have been playing together, year round, ever since.  He became my mentor of drumming.  The band has taken multiple trips outside of the US, as well as a trip to Hawaii just last year, and the whole band is like an extended family.  The percussion section is even closer.

In addition to the Reapers, John and I also played percussion in various musical theater productions.  John has a massive collection of drums and percussion which he would lend to me at any time.  Where else can you borrow a set of timpani or a bell tree?  We would sub for each other and discuss the best way to play a song (much of the drum/percussion parts are improvised).  One of my favorite show memories is the two of us covering the entire West Side Story part, written for four percussionists.

John's last show (just weeks ago) was playing High School Musical with his 11 13 year old son, Eric.  I'm really glad that he got to do that.  I may be called up to take up John's part in the band.  I hope it's only temporary.  It would be nice if Eric could take his father's place in the future.

Here are some pictures from our trip to the 2007 Pro Bowl in Hawaii:

John and I with Hula Cheerleaders

Playing outside the Pro Bowl

Java + Twitter = JavaOne2008

Tag your tweets with #JavaOne2008

Tag everything else with JavaOne2008

If you're old school Web 1.0: JavaOne

Why am I the #1 Sun blog today?  Go read Jonathan's blog!  He made an attempt to be funny, complete with legalese and dolphins, or something.  You're putting me on his radar!

Move along.  Nothing to see here.  If you're looking for an April Fool's Day prank, try the Do It Yourself Rick Roll.