Mar 28 2005
So, the idea is, I’ll buy a couple cuecats and set up an access
database for my books. I’ll scan the barcodes on the back and via
the ISBN pull the data in (author, publication date, etc.) from amazon
or some such site into said database. It’ll be neat. I’m
not sure about how I’ll organize the books yet…dewey seems so passé…
Update: Here’s the resource page for the CueCat. My scanners just came in, so I’ll be updating this presently.
Mar 25 2005
Shamelessly stolen from Neil Gaiman’s blog, this blog entry
here discusses what reading level most popular authors write at, among
other things. Yay America…writing for a fourth grade reading level…
Continue reading “Readability of popular novels and grammar-checking”
Mar 24 2005
So. I am definitely in University of Washington’s public health
program. My relatively medium far away future is sealed, and
school starts in late September (the 28th? I believe). Bonnie’s
medium far away future is almost sealed, and it looks like
Atlanta. Sigh. That pretty much means I need to find a
place to live from June to September that’s ideally under $350 in rent,
then a place in Seattle that’s cheap too. I’ll prolly give school
impressions as things go on, but I’m cautiously optimistic. Now,
if only the scholarship I applied to comes through….
Mar 24 2005
I have returned to the questionably successful practice of gardening.
Unlike last year, though (where I had way too many green beans and two
cucumbers total), I have bought a book to guide my way stumblingly into
the world of yummy fresh vegetables. And a cantaloupe. I’m
eventually going to be drawing up a diagram of how I’m arranging
plantings, and I bought a bale of straw to keep the weeds down around
the plants, but I’m still having trouble determining which little green
things are vegetables and which are weeds. Hmm. So far, I’m
planning to plant broccoli, lettuce, spinach, spaghetti squash,
strawberries, tomatos, cilantro, bell peppers, onions, garlic, okra,
green beans, eggplant, and lots of herbs. I may re-attempt
composting as well…
Update: I apparently have voles. This is not a good thing, as
their favorite treats seem to be vegetable seeds. I hope the rain
drowns em, and if not I may have to have a multipronged attack with
fire, flooding, and weedwhacking. That and rodent bait. Ugh…
Mar 24 2005
So, I’ve downloaded this random game from one of my favorite sites (Home of the Underdogs) called Shadow President.
Yes, I’m continuing the trend of expressing my power-hungry godlike
tendencies through DOS-only games from the early 90s. Anyway,
it’s a pretty interesting game so far, but it requires an annoying
amount of knowledge of geography. You pretty much set US budget,
US aid distribution, and foreign policy - demanding peace,
strengthening economic ties, condemning human rights records, and
what-not - and see where it leaves you in world and local standing,
eventually affecting reelection. The main drawback is that the
game is a bit dated; I’m not sure whether scenarios are random or not,
but the first one up in the tutorial was Iraq making aggressive moves
toward Kuwait. If it were up to date and in Windows it’d be
pretty damn cool, I’d think.
